The Rabbit Question. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2253, 6 May 1897, Page 15

The Rabbit Question. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Much criticism by correspondents and a leaderette by yourself has appeared recently in your columns over what your correspondents are pleased to call " Tho Infamous Rabbit Act," mostly provoked by the late summoning of settlers at the Peninsula. The subject is & very important one, but so far as I am able to judge nothing practicable haa been brought before your readers. Many of jour correspondents and yourself condemn the clause in (he Rabbifc Act {,'iving the inspector the power o s a Czar, bub I hold if the rabbits are to be put down hy iuspeccors they will not only require the power they have got, but, with some rabbit farmers the power of the Sultan would ba required. Something stronger than moral suasion, as some of your correspondents advocate, is required to put down bunny.

It is evident the inspectors now are unable to cape with the pest, as the Dunback Rabbit Factory has been receiving for th"c lasb two months from 3000 lo 5000 per day.

I know nothing of tke merits ot the Peninsula cases ; but in many cases of this kind I believe the old saying, slightly altered, will apply : "No case; abuEe the inspector." I notica the Peninsula inspector denies the impeachment of a correspondent that when about to summon one of "the right colour" he had orders to stay his hand. The denial was scarcely necessary, or he is not like the average inspector of my acquaintance. If such an unlikely order was given, they know better than publish it. No ; they are not generally built that way. They value their billets more than to do that. Bub although the inspector receives no written orders from headquarters to lead him to distinguish between colours, yet his own instinct gives him an unwritten order that to keep his position with the present Government he is bound to respect ife. He knows that by influence he got his appointment, and that, the same agent working the reverse way, he may lose it or get shifted: He has therefore to think twice — aye, if a Scotsman, it may be take a pinch of snuff, — and then give the right colour the benefit of the doubt.

But why one is taken and another left, apparently equally guilty, is a question that is often raised bufc has never been satisfactorily answered. And this brings me to the real purpose of my letter — to show that if the Czar has to go, and his colleague, the Sultan, is not wanted, we have something better to take their place. But fir6t let me try and prove that the rabbits are a sore evil. That is admitted, but not by all. Some cay they are a blessing to the working rn&n. I shall try and prove* they are a serious loss to the community If the rabbits had no commercial value they would have te^n defunct long ago. The factory is also favourable to a continuation of the pesfc ; bub so long as we continue to breed them trapping appears to be the best mode of destruction, and, by the way, many ot the rabbiters since the factory opened have been averaging nearly £1 per day.

I have written before advocating wire netting as the most feasible remedy yet known, and that the Government should provide it under the Advances to Settlers Act. The idea was favourably received by many, but not by the Government. To prove my position It is necessary to make out. shall I call it, a balance sheet, and show a prtfib and lo3s account, and for that purpose, for example, take 1000 acres of pastoral country in the lower part of the Waihemo electorate. The tenant in 1891 was paying Is per acre rent. He is of the " right colour," knows the run of the ropes, and has gone through what is called the ''Government mill," aud is now paying 6d per acre. His run carries about one sheep to two aud a-half acres and about two rabbits to one acre, or an average of 400 sheep and 2000 rabbits for the year. Six rabbits will eat or otherwise destroy gra?s equal to one sheep, or, say, to keep 2000 rabbitis is equal to 333 sheep. Allowing theße 2000 rabbits were all trapped and sold to the factory at 4d per pair, equals about £16 Now, take the value of the wool of the 333 sheep at 3s each, about £50. There is ihen the increase and decrease of the 333 sheep to be considered — say 66 sheep at 6s each. Increase of sheep and wool equal £70 as against £16 for rabbits. There is also the loss of land revenue, £25 ; and, as the small grazing runs are not valued for improvements for rating, they are charged 6 per cent, on the rent. The County Council loses about £L 12s rites ; that is the evil. Now for the remedy. To put up wire netting on the boundary fence of a 1000-acre section would require about five miles of netting at about £23 per mile. Allowing one mile of the boundary as a roadline, the neighbouring tenant paying the half of the remaining four miles, that would reduce the cost to three miles, or, say, £69 at 6 per cent. (£3 143), which sum would not amount to Id per' acre, which could ba added to the rent and paid to the receiver of land revenue until convenient to pay off the capital. The laud securely netted, two good trappers

would clear it in about a month or five weaks. — I am, &c,

Wuihecno,

lETTLER.