The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-27 00:00:00

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NEWSP

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Though the record of the rinderpest has yet
to be written, it is easy to foretell in what
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with by her Majesty's advisers has been the subject
of repeated remark and of by no means compli.. mentary comment. They have done as little as they
could help, as badly as the country would bear it,
ti
nmeansG
and as late as the public would submit to wait for
it. Like Robert of Normai.by, they have ever
been wanting when the occasion arose--or to use a
less dignified comparison, they have ever been ready
to shut the stable-door after the steed was stolen.
For many months we have known that the seeds of
the cattle plague may be sown by contact with in-
fected substances, by housing in infected sheds,
by carrying in infected cars, by pollution conveyed,
through the medium of manure or litter, blow or
hides, of infected animals, the persons, clothes, or
implements of their attendants and slaughterers.
The difficulties of disinfection have been debated,
and the means of surmounting those difficulties
have been discussed, but the absolute necessity of
some measures in that behalf has never been dis-
puted. Yet now, when the malady has reached a,
maximum unparalleled as yet, but soon to be sue..
passed by the next weekly return—when our losses
of stock are little short of 150,000, and new cases
continue to grow in number and augment in fata-
lity—we hear for the first time of any official sug-
gestions or recommendations' by which disinfection
may be secured.. And even now these recommen-
dations do not come from the Government. They
proceed not from the Lords of the Council, but
from the royal commissioners. They result no,
from that " wisdom and understanding" w.,th
which we are accustomed to pray that her sla-
jesty's advisers may be endowed, but from the
spontaneous action of certain gentlemen
whose advice every one may follow or not
as he feels inclined. The royal commissioners points
out a duty, but they impose no penalty for its vio-
lation. They indicate a public peril, but they inflict
no punishment on those who recklessly incur it from
lazy love of their own private ease or culpable in-
difference to the losses of others. In short, we may
say that while the country is sensible of the perils
with which infected sheds, and cars, and skins, and
clothes are fraught ; while the farmers fear them,
and the royal commissioners so dread them that of
their own mere motion they come forward with sug-
gestions for removing or mitigating them, the Go-
vernment alone is content to fold its hands, to hold
its tongue, to leave its powers unexercised, its func-
tions undischarged, while the pestilence progresses
at a rate which makes the period when cattle shall
have totally disappeered from our pastures a mere
question of calculation. We have no wish to blame
the Administration without just cause or beyond due
measure. As we have often said, this is not a party
question, and we can refer to the tone of our early
articles upon it in proof that we have always re-
frained from dealing with it in a party spirit. But
the complaints we now make we should urge against
any Administration, whatever were its politics and
whoever was at its head. The subject matter is the
people's food, and the point in debate is whether one
prime article of that food is to rise or sink from the
position of an everyday necessary to that of an occa-
sional luxury. Surely this is a matter not unworthy
the attention of statesmen of the highest rank, of
administrators of the first order. To have met
Parliament with a carefully prepared measure, in
which the extent of the evil was recognised, its
gravity admitted, the indisputable necessity of
stamping it out made the basis of legislation,
would have gone far towards restoring the coun-
try's waning confidence in Earl Russell as Premier.
For the sake of such a measure we would have
forgiven a great deal of folly and paltering with
Fenianism, and would have condoned an almost
unlimited amount of hesitancy in dealing with
Reform. But the Prime Minister has no such plea
upon which to rest. The course of the disease for
several months, the daily increasing mortality, the
well-grounded predictions of its continued progress,
the advance in the price of meat, the dreaded scar-
city, the possible famine, had all been insufficient to
satisfy the Government of the gravity of the situa-
tion. Only when Parliament had met, when public
dissatisfaction had found vent, when opponents
urged unanswerable arguments against administra-
tive supineness, while supporters sat silent or swelled
the chorus of complaint, only then, when adverse
divisions were threatened and "no confidence" votes
were talked of, did the Government at last announce
that they would bring in a measure in which the
policy they had all along opposed should be em-
bodied, and in which they would ask the Legislature
to condemn the very course which the responsible
advisers of the Crown had persistently pursued. It
may be said that though the Government acted late
it did not act last ; that we have now a prospect of
getting something like what we want, and that,
therefore, we need not waste our thoughts upon
what might and ought to have been done four or
five months ago. If we could regard the present
action of the Cabinet as satisfactory we might be
not indisposed to accept these excuses. "It is never
too late to mend," and as the farmer at the anti-
podes welcomed the penitent thief who came in the
nick of time to save his life, so we might gratefully
receive an effective measure of relief, even though it
were one which the Ministry had concocted hastily
and to which it had committed itself tardily. But the
cases are not parallel. If there be any usein a Govern-
ment at all, it is that it shall initiate imperial legis-
lation. Its information is, presumably, more com-
plete and accurate than that which is at the disposal
of any private person. Constitutional traditions
impose upon it the duty of introducing the measures
which in its judgment are necessary for the public
welfare. The willingness of the House of Commons
to pass such measures is the test of its confidence in
the Executive ; and the ease with which a bill intro-
duced by a member on the Treasury bench can be
carried through is at least ten times as great as that
with which one containing the self-same provisions
would pass if brought in by a private member. Yet
we have at this moment an example which looks like
the direct contrary of all this. A Government bill
and a private proposal are running neck and neck,
and, what is more, the wearer of the Opposition
colours is rather the favourite in the betting. Mr.
Hunt has matched himself with Sir G. Grey, and
has had the advantage in the competition. The
member for North Northamptonshire has constrained
the Home Secretary to enter the lists against him.
Heavily weighted with the disadvantages which
always attach to a private and an Opposition mem-
ber he has forced an unwilling Government into
unwonted activity, and has compelled a Chancellor
of the Exchequer positively pledged to a policy of
confiscation practically to admit the justice of the
cattle-owner's claim to compensation. Soon, we
suppose, on some fresh fillip being administered,' we
shall have the disinfecting recommendations of the
royal commissioners embodied in an act. After
another interval of great and growing mortality the
import of cattle will be interdicted, the suspension
of all market trade in live stock positively enjoined.
Long out of due time all that we have advocated
will be done, but the evils of Government delays
and inertness will never be undone. For years the
cattle upon our hills will be fewer ; the prices of meat
upon our tables will be higher than they need be or
would have been had Earl Russell and his colleagues
begin-
ning, courage to grapple with it in.
itthseglreoslsvo n s of
experience when pressed upon them
possessed ability to deal with the evil in its
thorjudgment enough thus late to learnalike
by
friends
Her ald.
adherents and political adversaries.—herald.
and foes, by supporters and opponents,_ by party
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