CATTLE TICK.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15747, 11 February 1922, Page 3

CATTLE TICK.

FARMERS AND THE GOVERNMENT. Strong fooling continues to find expression by farmers on the point of the liability of the spread of cattle tick. The farmers of the district, through the Farmers' Union, arc endeavoring to 'move the Government to take action for the enforcement of the amended regulations for the protection of uninfested districts. They have enlisted the aid of Messrs. K. S. Williams, A. T. Ngata, and W. D. Lysnar, M.'sP., in the fight, and these gentlemen have presumably done their best for-the farmers. Assurances have been received from the departmntal heads to the effect that the officers of the department were using every endeslvor to prevent the spread of the pest from tho districts in which it i 3 known that it exists. Further intimations have been repcived that the Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture were considering the point raised by the local exceptive of tho Union, with a view to early action.

The latest communication received by the Union executive is one that came up for discussion at the executive'meeting this afternoon. The letter was from the Director-General of the Department, stating that unless anything unforeseen happened, it was hoped to finally deal with the amended regulations immediately after the pressure due to the present session of Parliament is relaxed. Tho DirectorGeneral pointed out, however, that an Onler-in-Couucil, dated September 20. .191!), declared infestation of cattle tick a disease for the purposes of the Stock Act, 190 S, so that even were no regulations in force on the subject, eases of infestation could be dealt with by tin? department's inspectors under the general powers conferred upon them by that Act. The provisions of the Act. read in conjunction with the tick regulations gazetted in .1919, enabled the department to take very drastic action where necessarv.

This letter is regarded by farmers, we understand, as again demonstrating the policy of procrastination adopted by the Government in respect to cattle tick control. It is of a tj*pe with letters previously received, putting oft? the" evil day when the pressure of public opinion must enforce action. "Why cannot they find time immediately '?" asked a farmer to-day. If. as was stated, the amended regulations had been ready for months, then it should be a simple matter to put through an Ordcr-in-Council making them authoritative. The danger was growing, he declared, day by day, and the longer the department hesitated, the nearer would creep the menace of cattle tick infestation of hitherto clean districts. A TRAVELLER'S OPINION.

One finds in conversation with travellers from other countries with experience of farming, that tho cattle tick is greatly dreaded, and its distruetiveness recognised, wherever its danger looms. A visitor to Gisborne is Mr. W. Turner, of Manchester, England, who. in the course of a recent tour of South Africa, found the tick-combat-ting regulations stringently in force. He stated to a reporter to-day that, the South African Government imposed most stringent quarantine regulations upon herds infected with tho tick, and he had been brought to realise from the seriousness with which the. pest was regarded that its spread must mean a great loss to the country.