BAN ON BRITISH STOCK.

Southland Times, Issue 21073, 3 May 1930, Page 15

BAN ON BRITISH STOCK.

A DEBATABLE QUESTION. VISITING FARMERS’ COMMENTS. One question that has been brought prominently before farmers in New Zealand as a result of the visit of the Empire farmers to this country is the ban which has been placed by the New Zealand Government on the importation of British stock, because of the danger of the dread foot-and-mouth disease being introduced. The visitors criticised the restrictions as being unnecessarily harsh, particularly in view of the precautions that are taken at Home to ensure that no infection is allowed out of the country. Some of them were very emphatic that the stock in this country needed invigorating by the introduction of good pedigree blood —a little propaganda for which they can hardly be blamed. The whole question is a debatable one. There are those who hold with the visitors' opinion that the embargo should be removed; and there arc others who lorsee disaster if it were. • Bitter experience has taught most of the countries in the Old World what a persistent enemy foot-and-mouth disease is. Despite the efforts that have been made to wipe it out, and the millions of pounds that have been spent in the process —apart altogether from the economic loss it has caused —it still hangs as a threat over the head of the breeder. He does not know when and where it is going to break out again. An array of facts naturally inspires a general fear of the disease, and calls for the strictest precaution against it getting in to the Dominion. But it has been suggested that the risk, under present conditions, Is a little over-estiihated. The British authorities have established a quarantine station in which every head of stock for export has to undergo isolation before being shipped. Scientists and experts in live stock management are unanimous in asserting that there is not a possible chance of the disease leaking out of Great Britain through the export of stock. Live stock intended for export are first examined on the farm for any symptoms of the disease, and also for tuberculosis, and are conveyed to the quarantine station in special trucks. No one is allowed near the trucks, which are virtually sealed, en route, and particular care is taken to see that the animals are kept away from stock of any other kind. The period of isolation at the quarantine station is 14 days, and all the influence in the world will not persuade the authorities to reduce it by even one day. . , Australia and South Africa are prepared to accept these conditions, with the assurance that the svstem is absolutely proof against any risk, and the question has been asked: Why not New Zealand? The time that elapses between the exposure of the animal to and the development of the disease varies as a rule from three to six days, or possibly less. Obviously the discovery of the disease, if it were present, would be made before the animal left the quarantine station. On top of that there is the five weeks’ voyage out to this country, so that even if the symptoms were abnormally slow in developing the risk of their going undiscovered before the animal was landed seems to be reduced to an impossibility’. On the surface there appears no reason why our Government could not follow the lead given by the sister Dominions, and by relaxing the regulations permit the entry of the type of stock that the country admittedly needs.