The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-20 00:00:00

The Cattle Plague.

DEPUTATION TO EARL RUSSELL.

A deputation from a, county meeting on the
cattle plague, convened by the High Sheriff of Lan-
cashire at Preston, on the 11th of January, and
consisting of the Marquis of Hartington, M.P., Mr.
Charles Turner, M.P.,
Sir James Kay-Shuttle-
worth, Mr. Townley Parker, Mr. Thomas Weld
Blundell, Mr. Jonathan Peel, Mr. Fazackerley
Westby, and Mr. John Hargreaves, had an inter-
view by appointment with Earl Russell at his offi-
cial residence in Downing-street yesterday.
Sir JAMES KAY-SIIUTTLEWORTII said they were
a deputation from a county meeting convened
by the High-Sheriff of the County Palatine
of Lancaster, upon a requisition from a special
meeting of the Royal North Agricultural Society.
They were convinced of the inadequacy of
all the Orders in Council, and of their
own efforts in pursuance of these orders, to
arrest the progress of the cattle plague. They would,
in the first place, submit to his lordship that the
English people were not accustomed to the restraints
of a despotic authority, and that such restraints
were consequently imposed with greater difficulty
and submitted to with greater resistance than in
foreign countries. The tenant farmers were by their
comparative seclusion unfitted for those prompt and
decisive measures which had been adopted in some
of those counties which breed and do not import
their store stock, and where the tenants are more
opulent and enterprising. As justices of the peace
they had no control over the municipal boroughs,
and in many of them the regulations as to the
movement of live stock afforded no adequate pro-
tection to the farmer. Nor did they find such uni-
formity in the regulations of neighbouring counties,
nor such completeness in the order itself, as to lead
them to hope that their authority would be effectual
in preventing that movement of live stock which the
last Order in Council was intended to insure. They
had, therefore, to submit to his lordship the import-
ance of giving.greater stringency to the powers con-
fided to justices of the peace, and the necessity of
uniform and immediate action. As the efforts of the
various local authorities seemed inadequate to secure
the requisite promptness and uniformity, they were
to urge her Majesty's Government to take upon
themselves the duty of at once issuing a general
order peremptorily stopping all traffic in live stock
of all kinds throughout Great Britain, under limi-
tations and conditions if they should so think fit,
provided the same were not inconsistent with the
paramount object of staying the further spread of
the plague. While they would urge upon her Ma-
jesty's Government the adoption of this measure,
they would not conceal from his lordship their ap-
prehension that the contagion of this malady is so
subtle, so swift, so easily transmissible, that when,
as now, twelve thousand foci for its diffusion had
been established, it was difficult to conceive that
any measure of a preventive character could
now do more than retard its progress, and,
in fact, that the hope was too sanguine that even the
entire stoppage of the movement of live stock, if that
were possible, would extinguish the malady. They
requested his lordship to bear in mind that, from
probably one or few importations, this disease had
in seven months spread so rapidly as to have destroyed
probably 100,000 head of neat stock, worth one mil-
lion of money. Its present rate of destruction would
amount to a loss of five millions in one year, and is
from week to week rapidly augmenting. They were
not sanguine enough to anticipate that the utmost
efforts of the Government, seconded by the most
loyal exertions of rural and municipal authorities,
could now prevent the loss of at least 1-sth of the
whole neat stock of Great Britain, or of cattle worth
14 millions of money. They were of opinion that a
system of insurance might be devised which by the
universal contribution of an average charge would en-
able neat stockholders to protect each other from the
most severe rates of loss, and entire districts in this
way to escape the pressure of a ruinous local burden.
They conceived that such a system might be devised
by the Government as would secure these results
without any need of a State guarantee or of any
form of contribution from property not agricultural,
but that, as such a system would require the sanc-
tion of an Act of Parliament, they had no hope that
it could be adopted without the active support of
her Majesty's Ministers. They refrained from at-
tempting to suggest to his lordship the details of such
a measure, which were a proper subject for the de-
liberations of the Cabinet, and for discussions in
Parliament.

Earl RUSSELL then said that with respect to the
first part of the representation made by the deputa-
tion—viz., as to the adoption of more stringent mea-
sures to prevent the movement'of stock, he conceived
that one main difficulty had been pointed out by Sir
James Kay-Shuttleworth. He had stated that the
English people were little accustomed to the exer-
cise of such authority as would be required to en-
force such restrictions. A large increase of the
police force would, therefore, be required, and with
that an Act of Parliament to enable that new
force to stop cattle on the roads. His lordship said
that his own observation of the numbers of cattle
which he had himself constantly encounteredpassing
over Hammersmith-bridge was a proof of the dif-
ficulty of stopping such movement on roads without
new powers from Parliament, and an increase of the
police. His lordship then gave instances of the im-
portation of the disease into certain counties by the
purchase of diseased stock by cattle dealers or far-
mers, and of the subsequent disastrous consequences.
The Government could not, however, with delibera-
tion determine to apply for an increase of their
powers of restraint, or for authority to require per-
emptorily an increase of the police force. But the
matter was one which was worthy of consideration.
Then, as to the second part of the suggestion, the
Government were well inclined, if such a measure
were generally desired by agriculturists, to intro-
duce an act of Parliament enabling them to grant
loans upon satisfactory security, and under proper
regulations, to meet the losses from the cattle
plague. They conceived that well-constituted so-
cieties for mutual assurance from losses from the
cattle plague might be formed in counties, with a
view to avail themselves of such a loan. But the
Government had great difficulty in conceiving how
such a system of insurance against these losses could
be made to work efficiently in a wider area than
counties. The deputation had assured him that
they did not seek any grant of public money, nor
guarantee from Government that the compensation
for losses from the cattle plague for which such as-
sociations would become responsible should be paid,
nor any charge on any kind of property except farm-
ing lands. That assurance was very satisfactory to
him, and it induced him, therefore, to hope that the
public loan for which the Government was disposed
to ask the sanction of Parliament might be made to
harmonise with some system of voluntary mutual
assurance in counties. He had no doubt that ample
security could be given for the repayment of such a
loan, and that the charge could be made a subject