DANGER OF ANTHRAX.

Gisborne Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1359, 20 January 1905, Page 2

DANGER OF ANTHRAX.

THE GOVERNMENT PROPOSAL. (Per Press Association.) Palmerston North, last night. I Considerable discussion took plaoe at I the meeting of the Colonial Executive of I the Farmers’ Union yesterday upon the I reported decision of the Cabinet to abacI don the erection of sterilising works as I promised to the Farmers’ Union and the Agricultural and Pastoral Associations of I tue oolony. Tbo proposal to establish I sterilising outfits at the foreign ports of shipment was condemned as utterly unreliable, especially when it was admitted that a handful of improperly steamed bone was sufficient to inooulate a wide area with anthrax. Great indignation was I expressed that after the selection of I the sites and the appointment of an officer to attend to the sterilising plant, I as well as the report that an order has been placed for an up-to-date plant, it was I now suggested that the necessary safeI guards to human life should bo abandoned. A number of communications were reI ceived from the A. and P. Associations, I directors of meat export companies, and 1 others on the subject, all of whom emI phasised the need of protecting tho settlers j and tho lands of the colony, as recommended by the chief veterinarian and I other authorities acquainted with the I virulence of the disease. One writer I pointed out that to be perfectly safe the plants should bo erected in quarantine I areas, so that there would bo no I chance of infection by carrying bones I or bonodust in trucks to the sterilising I plants, and afterwards putting the trucks into ordinary traffic. The following resolution was unanimously adopted : —“ That the executive views with alarm the rumor that tho Government does not intend to j carry out the distinct promise that all imported bones should bo sterilised in New Zealand, as recommended by Mr Gilruth. Anthrax has already proved a menace to human life (vide illustration in Mr Gilruth’s last report and evidence of every country in which this disease exists) and a grave danger to our principal industry. For these reasons the executive demands that the promise of the erection of sterilising works shall be carried out, or that the importation of all bones and bonedust shall be prohibited.”