Original Correspondence

Otago Daily Times, Issue 212, 25 August 1862, Page 5

Original Correspondence

THE ROUTE BY VALPY'S, &c. {To the Editor of the Daily Times.) Sib, —Permit me through the columns of your itaper to contradict the report that has got into circulation about the route over the Mangatua Ranges, by Valpy's, 6ic In the first place there is no snow on this route, either on the Mangatua Ranges, or elsewhere. I have this from a gentleman just "returned from that part of the country. Mr. John How, of MacVHotel, West Taieri, also asserts, that although from one hundred to one hundred and fifty people have passed, and stopped at his house daily, as yet, none to his knowledge have returned. Cobb's driver,-on tlie same road, confirms this statement, I will endeavor to get fuller particulars of this line of route next week. I am sir, Your obedient servant, _ , A Digger. Dunedm, August 23rd, 1862.

THE FAT WETHER ACT. (To the Editor of the Daily Times.) Sib, —Protection, it seems, is not a thing of the past, even in a country professing advanced views. There is at present an Act coming into force in Otago, the results of which the mo«t strenuous opposer of the repeal of corn laws would have shrunk from contemplating. This Act, popularly known by the title of the " Fat Wether Act," amounts, in fact, to the absolute exclusion from any. Otago market of wethers not fattened in the Province, and the supply being by no means proportionate to the demand, the price of meat, already surely sufficiently high to satisfy the most greedy producer, will be raised to what might properly be called famine rates. The way, as no doubt all your readers know, in which this undesirable result is to be effected, is by rendering compulsory the dipping of sheep that may be brought into the Province either by sea or land. I will say nothing about the Act asfar as it applies to ship sueep, as I believe it is found that few wethers are m good order after a voyage, and that, as they will have to be held some time at any rate, this dippm? will not in their case keep mutton oa* of the market, but will be a very wise and necessary precaution.

I turn now to the Act as it applies to sheep introduced by land. There are now at present in the district of the Canterbury Province, south of Timaru, about 20,000 marketable wethers, and this district has never had a scabby sheep in it. In spite of this, as the Act stands, they will all have to be dippecTon crossing the Waitangi, which process, if properly carried out, as anyone acquainted with the management of sheep will acknowledge, will render them unfit for the batcher for some months. This, as no doubt was the inteution of the framers of the Act, either excludes Canterbury wethers entirely, or brings at on.cc *» the Otago squatters a lucrative trade as middlemen, with no one to compete with them. This is not for the benefit of the public, but for the eood of an interested few.

Let, if you like, responsible inspectors make the strictest examination, and the most searching inquiries, to assure themselves that the sheep have not come from an infected district. But do not, in the name of common sease, oblige sheep to be dipped coming from a clean country into an infected one • it would be so unreasonable to oblige a traveller who came from a healthy country into a plague-stricken one to undergo quarantine. The usual reply made by the advocates of this Act to our remonstrances is, that Otago sheep are compelled to be dipped on entering Canterbury: why should not the tables be turned ? I answer to su^-h that, in the first place, there has never been any demand for wethers in Canterbury sufficiently oreat to induce anyone to briagr them in from Otago,°and that other sheep losing their condition is a comparatively trifling condition. And in the second place that, as ihe run next the boundary, through which, all sheep coanng from Otago into Canterbury have to pass, has been infected with scab ©n and off for several years dipping on entering this Province is a precaution that a wise man would take, without any compulsion from the Government at all. I would, in conclusion, call the attention of the passers of this bill to the fact that a large digging population! if the supply of gold failed at all, would not be the easiest class in the world for a Government to keep in order, with meat at a price that would put it virtually out of their reach. I am, Sir, Yours obediently, • • *