SCAB LEGISLATION.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 6, Issue 475, 12 September 1876, Page 2

SCAB LEGISLATION.

When the Canterbury Sheep Bill was before the Legislative Council. the Hon Mr Waterhouse said it appeared to him that they had been rather premature in abolishing the provinces if they were to re-establish provincial legislation in the manner proposed by this Bill Then would be no end whatever to their work if, in to the general legislation of tha country, they were now fo commence special f n each of the provineee. His ImfwMsaid that the ououmstaaose of fhatarhiiij

were peculiar. He (Ur Waterhouse) adm:tted that the people of Canterbuiy were a chosen race and a peculiar people, but, at the same lime, be could not admit that, se far as the disease of scab was concerned, their poeition waa at all a peculiar cm, or one that called tor special legislation. The position of all the provinces as regarded scab waa a very unsatisfactory one, It was perhaps mors satisfactory in the Province of Canterbury then in any other province, and the provincial legislation of Canterbury was, he believed, more satisfactory than the provincial legislation elsewhere. The defect of all their provincial legislation regarding scab was that it bad not been in the power of Provincial L* gislatures to enact a penalty prepor* tionate to tbs offence, and consequently the owners of diseased flocks bad, in many cases practically set the law at defiance, contenting themselves with paying the penalty rather than take efficient steps to clean their sheep. In the Province of Wellington there was great need of special legislation. Disease was rampant in many parts of the province, and from time to time those of them who had bean at great trouble and expense in cleaning their flocks were liable to have their trouble and expense thrown away, ia consequence of their flocks being infected by those of their neighbors. Only within the last three weeks/ he himself had been in the unfortunate position of having had a portion of his flocks so in* fected. Why should there be special legislation in the case of the Fiovinoe «f Canterbury, and no legislation to meet the naceasities of the case in other provinces t He trusted that, if the Council agreed to any scab legislation during this session, it would be of such a nature that it might be general in its application—although perhaps wiled into force in the various provinces by the Proclamation of the Govenor, still of such a character that other provinces Canterbury should, it they so desired, avail themselves of it. He must say that the Bill itself was, to his mind, of a very objectionable character ; and he would not assent to the ' second reading were it not that he believed the measure would be very seriously and very beneficially altered when it went through the process of a reference to a Select Committee; It was proposed in the Bill that wherever the disease of scab existed the district should be proclaimed an infected district, and that no A person having sheep within that district « should be at liberty to sell them. It was bad enough to visit the sins of the father upon the children j but to visit the sins of one sbeepowner upon his neighbors was quite intolerable. To say, for instance, that a person in one part of a district, perhaps through no fault of bis own-—it might oe from an wit of maliciousness on the part of a neighbor; for eases of maliciousness had occurred in this province,' and they occurred elsewhere—to say that because a sheepownef in one part of the district had his sheep scabby, therefore his neighbors should be deprived of a market, although their sheep were clean, was an outrageous injustice. It might have a most serious influence. It might, and practically would in some eases, have the effect of ruining the unfortunate persons whose flocks were dean, and who were deprived of the opportunity of selling their sheep because one of their neighbors had, througn misfortune or through fault of his own, got his flecks infected. The proper way of dealing with this disease of scab was to make the penalties much heavier than they were at present. If the law was imperative, and applied to all parts of the colony, that any person failing to clean his flock within sis months should subject himself to a penalty of sixpence for each sheep in bis pomsision, that if be failed to clean them within twelve months the penslty should be doubled, and that if at the end of eighteen months he still failed to clean them the penalty should be again doubled, and so doubling the penalty, there would not bo after three years a single scabby sheep. Unless they had some decided legislation of that character thst would effectually stamp the disease out, they would be at all times liable to this infection.