The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-15 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

HOUSE OF COMMONS—LAST EVENING.
The SPEAKER took the chair at two o'clock.
CATTLE PLAGUE BILL.
Sir G. GREY moved the second reading of this bill.
Mr. HUNT said he should not object to the second
reading of the bill, but he should reserve to himself the
right of moving, if he should think proper, any alteration
of the bill. He calculated that the Government bill was
not made to effect the object intended. Concessions had
been made to certain towns to the great detriment of
others. Ho considered the bill a bad one, and he did not
move its rejection, because ho was too much alive to the
danger of delay. Were he to move its rejection the Go-
vernment party would at once say it was a party metier, to
bring about a Ministerial crisis and produce a state of chaos
in that house. He had supported the Government on
many occasions, but since the removal by the hand of death
of the great master mind, his opinion as to the existence
of the present Government was by no means heightened.
He consented to the second reading of the measure, bad
as it was, solely to prevent further delay, but in commit-
tee he could not see that it could pass without the first
20 clauses were omitted. He thought, struggle how they
might, the bill even to be in the slightest degree effective,
must be made to stop all carriage of cattle for the present
on railways, and more stringent regulations enacted for
the moving of cattle on the high road.
Mr. BRIGHT thought there appeared to him to be a
good deal of party feeling mixed up with hon. gentle-
men's anxiety relative to the existing calamity. (Hear,
hear.) He thought the house was doing that which was
unwise; they were legislating in a panic. The great object of
the Government appearedto him, afteran attentive perusal,
to be an attempt at isolation, in which the hon. gentleman
opposite did not go far enough. The next was that there
was to be a Government permission to slaughter all cattle
attacked with the disease, or suspected of being ill ; and
the third point was compensation. Ho thought that grant-
ing power for indiscrimate slaughter would tend to set
aside all attempts to arrive at a curative for the disease—
(hear, hear)—and farmers would take no steps, but would
quietly allow the cattle to be killed, because they
would receive compensation. In the Irish bill it was
thought possible that dogs might carry about the disease,
and therefore all humble curs--(laughter)—were to bo
kept in close confinement. Now, he should like to know
from the hon. member for Northampton whether the
coun-
try gentlemen, who were so strongly represented in that
house, would stand well with the country if the sport of
fox-hunting was carried on for the next month or so ? In
the paper that contained a report of the great meeting held
at Northampton, at which about 2,000 persons were pre-
sent—
Mr. HUNT—Five hundred.
Mr. BRIGHT was sorry that there was not greater
interest taken in the measure; but in tho paper
to which he had alluded ho found there wore
no less than fifteen packs of hounds fixed for meet-
ings during the week, and who could tell the number of
miles and extent of country those hounds would traverse ?
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) If the disease is carried about
by everything that flies—by everything that creeps—why
not things which run ? (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He
could not approve of the compensation clauses, because the
compensation was to be paid to rich men in that house and
out of it—(hear, hear, and oh, oh)—when nothing of the
kind was ever thought of in the cases of those who lost so
much by the cotton famine. (Hear.) He had been told that
the cattle disease had not killed more animals last year than
had died of the lung disease in 1860, and he should like to
know if that could be contradicted. That circumstance
showed the want of agricultural
,statistics, and who had
been more indisposed to allow such to be collected than
the farmers themselves. Ho objected to voting money out
of the funds of the country to pay compensation to rich and
well-to-do farmers ; and what they should do was to strike
out this indiscriminate slaughter, and those by which
compensation was to be voted out of the taxes wrung from
the poor and struggling artisans, in order that rich men
might be compensated for that which they could well afford
to bear. He wondered they were not ashamed to pass
such a measure. •
Col. LINDSAY supported the bill of the Government in
preference to that of the hon. member for Northampton,
as he looked upon the latter as too stringent and unwork-
able. The farmers had never expressed a wish that fox-
hounds should not run. If they had the country gentlemen
would at once cease from such sport. The hon. member
for Birmingham had transgressed the rules of that house
in speaking of that which he did not understand. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) A fly might carry the disease, and a
bird do the same, but a foxhound did not do so. (Loud
laughter.) He should support the bill of the Govern-
ment.

Mr. LOWE said the hon. member for Birmingham had
endeavoured by his speech to get up a fight between the
humble cur and the lordly foxhound, and to manu-
facture a grievance. (Hear, hear.) He denied that the
bill was brought forward to benefit the rich and
large landowner at the expense of his less fortunate brother
farmer. The compensation was to be given to farmers for
nrer—purkuu gut.ou, vas,. ~aua t.zao money otrgut to be
taken from the general contribution. He pressed on the
Government to reconsider the question of conveyance of
the cattle by railway, because it was impossible to clean
the railway trucks so thoroughly as to render them free
from contagion within the time allotted. The bill, he be-
lieved, without these alterations were made, would share
the fate of many excellent people—namely, it would die
before it was thoroughly understood. (Laughter.) He
hoped the Government would withdraw the 18th clause,
which would remove a matter of much dissatisfaction from
the bill.

Mr. J. S. MILL said he agreed in tho main with the
member for Birmingham ; but there was a point in the bill
which he could not assent to, and that was the compensa-
tion proposed by the bill, which he looked upon as exces-
sive; because by the bill as it stood the farmer would be a
gainer by the compensation if two-thirds the value of the

animal slaughtered was adhered to. He did not lookupon
the producer as the great sufferer—the consumer would
have to pay an increased price for his meat according as
the producer increased his price, which he would do as his
losses increased, and in that way the consumers would
be those who would suffer most, and therefore were the
best entitled to any compensation. (Hear, hear.)
He thought an aristocracy should have the feelings of an
aristocracy, and that they should not be the first to come
in and set up a claim for compensation. They bore all
the honours of the country, therefore they ought to bear
the brunt of any emergency that might arise.
Viscount CRANBOURNE thought compensation would
be looked upon not as an agricultural but a national ques-
tion, but he felt'certain that the superstitious reverence of

the Government for local authority would utterly destroy
the bill, and therefore he hoped the right hon. gentleman
would even at that late stage reconsider the conclusions

he had arrived at.

Mr. AYRTON wished to know from the Government
how the compensation was to be levied on animals slaugh-
tered in the metropolitan markets. It might arise that the

animals would be hurried from certain counties, where they
were attacked by the disease, to the Metropolitan Cattle

Market for slaughter, and the compensation would there

fore be cast upon the metropolis. He thought to become

entitled to compensation the animal ought to have remained
in a certain locality somo time before the owner of it could

receive compensation for its slaughter. He should like to

hear the opinion of the right lion. gentleman the Secretary

for the Home Department on that point.
Mr. ACLAND hoped the Government would adhere to
the present provisions of the bill, because a departure

from them would, in hie opinion, prove fatal to the mea,

sure.

Mr. N. GRENVILLE supported the bill brought in by
Government.

Sir G. GREY thought as there was a general agreement
with respect to the bill of the Government, it should be
now read a second time. He should not object to the bill
of the hon. member for Northampton passing tho same

stage in order that the question, upon which there was a
diversity of opinion, might b 3 raised in committee.
The bill of the Government, as also that introduced by
Mr. Hunt, wore then severally read a second time and
ordered to be committed to-morrow.

The house then adjourned.

Foreign Mail Packet List

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. THE ABYSSINIAN PRISONERS.—Foreign Office,
Feb. 14.—Further information has been received
from Mr. Rassam, to the effect that he had reached Matemma
on the 21st November, and was there expecting an answer
from King Theodore, to whom he had written. The pri-
soners were in good health by the last intelligence,
dated October 17.