LIVE CATTLE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1204, 29 March 1895, Page 5

LIVE CATTLE.

We may sweep away every experiment that has been hitherto made to take live cattle from Australia to Great Britain as abso* lutely worthless. We can learn nothing from small carefully selected lots of bullocks treated with the special attention which is only possible to the few. As to the carriage of oxen by the thousand we learn nothing by the result of shipments here and there of a score under favourable conditions. Nothing will teach that except the actual carriage of a thousand, and then there must be more than one vogage. Even from the voyages of the favoured few, however, we learn that the risks are sometimes considerable f and insurance companies and others interested are pricking up their ears a little. The records of the shorter voyages of live cattle from American ports are, it is necessary to bear in mind, not reassuring. The suffering of the beasts is sometimes so great and their presence on board ships occasionally so undesirable that the Nautical Almanac is our authority—the veteran Plimsoll is seriously preparing to have one more maritime crusade before he dies. Now we wish well to the live meat trade, because if it can be carried on with decent comfort to the animals it will greatly increase the returns to the grower. But we make the above remarks, apropos of the announced determination to make a trial shipment of 19Q0 head, to warn all concerned tl*at the question of possibility ; is a long way yet from settlement,