THE RABBIT ACT.

Southland Times, Issue 19394, 7 November 1924, Page 4

THE RABBIT ACT.

Accepting the risk that further reference to this subject may exhaust Mr Nosworthy’s patience, we must, in justice to ourselves, direct his attention to the fact that there is a vast difference between a statement couched in negative terms and one which takes a stand on the positive side. The Minister of Agriculture has been long enough in politics to know that a lot of space lies between his declaration that no application for permission to prosecute under the Rabbit Act that has reached him has been refused by him, and his later assurance that every such application from both the North Island and the South Island has been granted without delay. If the Minister of Agriculture had given this reply in answer to our first editorial reference to this question the position would be quite different, because long ago we would have asked him if he could give us the number of prosecutions carried to the Courts under this Act during the two years to which he refers. Mr Nosworthy would have been asked weeks ago to give us the figures for each year and for each Island, and so he must not blame us for having to make this request now. We are tempted to proceed with this matter in view of the Minister’s evident satisfaction with what has been done, and is being done by the Department, which, he says, has done nothing to impair the efficiency or energy of the rabbit inspectors. In another column we publish a letter from “Runholder” who obviously is not in agreement with the Minister, and who refers to the return of fines to fanners convicted under the Act in Central Otago as evidence of one “blunting” of the inspectors’ efficiency. The Minister of Agriculture would also be interested in statements we have published from Southland farmers who declare that some of the worst offenders in this matter are the lessees of Crown lands. Perhaps the Minister, when next he comes South, will give a little attention to Central Otago, where a dairy herd was established a little while ago, because we are assured that he will there obtain enough evidence to convince him that our curiosity was not without justification.