CATTLE EMBARGO

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20512, 2 September 1936, Page 3

CATTLE EMBARGO

FOR AND AGAINST The embargo on British cattle to New Zealand is evidently a subject of much Interest at Home just now, and both sides of the case have been presented in recent issues of ‘‘The Field.” The lifting of the embargo was urged by Viscount Bledisloe in an address to the Surveyors’ Institute, and editorial support pointed out that foot-and-mouth disease does not exist in Britain at the present time, while existing quarantine regulations afford an ample safeguard for the Dominion. The other side of the question is presented by Mr A. E. Robinson, Auckland provincial secretary of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. He points out that there is a very great difference in conditions between the two countries. If the disease did reach New Zealand, the embargo would be against our products—the products we have to export in order to live on any modern standard of comfort. Should the wild fauna of the country become affected, they are so numerous and occupy areas so difficult of access, that the disease would become endemic. Again, as New Zealand cattle have been in no way inoculated, it is possible that the disease would spread like the old murrain, or like smallpox when the Spa nlards first went to Mexico. "I hope this makes the distinction that it is unfair for Britain to expect us to take a risk with such dire possibilities attached to it,” comments the writer. He adds: “Breeds which need constant importations to keep up to standard are evidently not the best to circulate in this Dominion. Most breed societies and almost all farmers are quite satisfied with the position. Nor is it the British farmer, but only a few breeders, who want New Zealand to take risks of disease for a trade which would figure at only a trifling total. In any case, this is a point which concerns New Zealand only.”