Stock From Britain.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19155, 11 November 1927, Page 8

Stock From Britain.

The President of the Royal Agriculj tural and Pastoral Association raised | an important question yesterday in his brief speech of welcome to her Excellency Lady Alice Fergusson. Mr Perry fcpoke of the difficulty of maintaining the standard of our flocks and herds without the occasional introduction of new blood, and said that negotiations arc now in progress which may overcome the obstacle to importations from Britain caused by the prevalence' of foot-and-mouth disease. Later in the day, in an interview with a representative of The Press, the President of the Canterbury Association spoke with guarded approval of the plan suggested by Mr Perry, which is, briefly, that a double quarantine should be established over imported stock, a long period in Britain and then a further period here, and that no stock should be taken from infected districts. It is certainly worth considering whether stud stock might not be imported safely under those very rigorous conditions, and as the DirectorGeneral of Agriculture is at present in Britain, there could not be a more favourable time for having enquiries made. But it is to be pointed out in the first place that which Dr. Reakes might have hoped to do along these lines when he left the Dominion will now be more difficult owing to a further outbreak since he set sail. And it cannot be forgotten in the second place that a long enough period of quarantine to allay all uneasiness—say, three months at each end of the sea journey—would add enormously to the cost of stock, and perhaps make the plan impracticable. It has been definitely decided in Australia, if we may accept the latest announcements in the Australian papers, that the cost of effective quarantine is too great to permit of any further importations of British stock for some time, and it is to be expected —certainly to be feared —that when the actual cost of the plan is known in New Zealand it might alarm all but the most favourably circumstanced breeders.