DISEASES IN CATTLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 12

DISEASES IN CATTLE.

The information furnished in the House of Commons by the Minister of Agriculture respecting the scope of the latest visitation of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain, the measures necessary to cope with it, and the cost entailed upon ihe State is of an impressive character. It emphasises how difficult it may be to deal effectively with an insidious enemy once the latter has obtained a footing. Barely two or three counties in England have enjoyed immunity from the spread of the disease, while Scotland has also been extensively affected. In the light of the figures quoted the visitation becomes the worst recorded in the United Kingdom for many years. The record of slaughter comprises an immense number of cattle, sheep, and pigs. The compensation payable to the owners for the levy of this destructive but necessary toll upon their stock is estimated at £3,237,000 up to the present. Such an outbreak, or rather series of outbreaks, for it was early in 1022 that the position became suddenly serious, has naturally directed attention, not unaccompanied by a good deal of criticism, to the methods adopted by the Government in regard to both remedial measures and the steps taken to detect and trace all media of infection. When the Board of Agriculture was established some thirty-five years ago one of the chief duties entrusted to it was that of keeping the flocks and herds of the country free from contagious disease. Up to the last two or three years the results attested the successful discharge of this duty. Sporadic out breaks of foot-and-mouth disease were quickly suppressed and localised, and it is stated that the average annual cost of eradicating such outbreaks and keeping the country practically free from the disease was not more than £9OOO between 1892 and 1922. Possibly such results were productive of over-confi dence. Concerning the visitation in 1922, in which year alone the suppressive measures cost about £1,250,000, it was said that it descended upon the Old Country like one of the plagues of Egypt, covering a great part of England and Scotland in less than ten days. Since then there has been much inquiry on the part of both farmers and the general public whether the system of ruthless slaughter of stock and the heavy cost thereby involved can be justified. In some quarters it has been suggested that the remedy of slaughter is worse than ’p disease, and that curative methods would be cheaper and equally efficacious. It does not appear, however, that those who have supported this contention have made out a sufficiently convincing case. In a sense curative methods, experiments in inoculation and so forth, would be cheaper to the State, because the co Q t would fall upon the owners of the animals, and compensation for animals compulsorily slaughtered would not be paid out of the public funds. But there r-eems to he irresistible cogency in the argument that the object always in view should be to keep the cattle of the country free from disease, and, that being so, there is but one method by which the desired purpose may be achieved. It is urged, and quite dispassionately, that the efficacy of the slaughter method has been demonstrated by thirty years’ experience in Great Britain, while the failure of the curative system has been demonstrated in other countries. Figures have been cited relative to the cost of endeavouring to cope with foot-and-mouth disease in Continental countries by curative methods which represent it as greatly exceeding the expenditure entailed in the suppression of the recent outbreaks in Britain, heavy as that has been. The infection is conveyed apparently in such devious ways—even birds and foxes being indicted as carriers—that it is probably inevitable that there should be outbreaks of the

disease from time to time. Success in handling the situation then becomes largely a matter of promptitude and thoroughness. But the recent experience of the British pastoralists carries to other parts of the Empire the reminder that they cannot be too vigilant in safeguarding their frontiers against the entrance of infection. Only this week a message from San Francisco has told of the slaughter of California’s greatest herd of Holstein cattle owing to the presence of foot-and-mouth disease. Regarding the virulence and terribly con tagious nature of the dreaded rinderpest, another plague attacking cattle against which only ruthless warfare and scrupulous precautions can prevail, much might be said. But the .Department of Agriculture in the dominion is on the alert, it is satisfactory to note, in relation to its responsibilities in such connection, for much depends upon its vigilance if country so far as its flocks and herds are concerned.