THE IMPORTATION OF STOCK PROHIBITION.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 577, 25 April 1876, Page 3

THE IMPORTATION OF STOCK PROHIBITION.

(. Australasian .) ! In the Australasian of March 18th, appeared an article commenting on a charge made by a correspondent of the isydney Mail against the honour and integrity of Victoria in the matter of the importation of live stock from Europe. That there may be no misunderstanding with regard to the nature of the charge, we repeat the paragraph in which, itis contained, which runs thus:—“ln the first place, New Zealand held back from the action determined upon by the general conference of the Australian colonies. South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, and Queensland agreed to prohibit the importation of British stock, This contract has been religiously observed by this colony, but aot so by Victoria. New Zealand was closed to New South Wales, but has been open to Victoria ; and our friends across the border, during the past few years, have not been slow to avail themselves of the opportunity. Cattle arrived from England at New Zealand, and were quickly transhipped to Victoria. The latter colony has now closed its ports to New Zealand, and, I may add, it waa high time, for its breeders have had a fair share of the rich cake which its neighbours so liberally subscribed towards providing.” F enngfuily assured that no European cattle could have entered our port in the manner assorted without our knowledge, we had not the slightest hesitation in contradicting so scurrilous a charge, unsupported as it was by a single reference to such evidence as should have been in the hands of any person venturing to make it. Om denial of the charge, however, neither satisfied our Sydney contemporary, nor led him to question the accuracy !of his information. In the Mail of the 25th ult. appeared a violent editorial, virtually adopting the correspondent’scharge, but still offering no evidence in support of it unless a quotation from the Victorian statistics for the year 1874, in which are found entered eleven (11) head of cattle and 1033 sheep from the “ United Kingdom,” and 56 sheep from New Zealand, is to be regarded as such. Were our contemporary possessed of common prudence, he would have refrained from palliating his correspondent’s assertion that “ Cattle arrived from England at New Zealand, and were quickly transhipped to Victoria,” when he could find no record of any such transactions in the Customs statistics of this colony, from which he made the above quotation. Had any been received from New Zealand they would have been entered as coming from that country, and not from the United Kingdom. Theentry, fifty-six sheep from New Zealand, should have at once assured any ordinarily intelligent person that cattle and sheep entered as having come from the United Kingdom had come direct from that country, and not from any of the colonies ; our contemporary, however, seems to have been complete’y blinded by a desire to affix upon the colony of Victoria a breach of faith in this matter of importing cattle from Europe. And now for the explanation of these entries, which have been cited as proof of Victoria’s delinquency. The 56 sheep entered as coming from New Zealand were really admitted. At the show of the National Agricultural Society in the previous year Messrs Sutton Brothers, of Southland, New Zealand, who are long established breeders of Leicester sheep, had exhibited a number for show and sale. In 1874 the firm being, it was stated, unaware that the restriction applied to New Zealand bred stock as well as to that imported from England, again sent a consignment, the fifty-six sheep in question, to the national show of that year. The inspector declined to allow them to land, but after much controversy the Government decided to admit them—erroneously, as we thought, and still think—but with that point we need not now meddle. No cattle nor any other sheep have, at any time since the Act came into operation, been received thence, nor from the United Kingdom, except those which were placed on board vessels for Melbourne not later than the 9th June, 1873, as publicly notified by our AgentGeneral in London on the 24th May of that year. The other entries in the statistics for 1874 are those relating to cattle and sheep which were shipped in England as above, and which arrived in Victoria during June, July, August, and September, 1873. A practice seems to exist in the Customs department of permitting the the formal publication of portions of the manifests of vessels arriving at this port to be deferred until the vessels are about leaving on their return voyage. We do not pretend to know the precise reasons for this practice, but the inquiries we have instituted have shown us that in the bill of entry for the week ending January 17th, 1874, appear cattle and sheep which arrived here iu the previous July; that stock which arrived in June, 1873, did not appear in the bill of entry until February following. Sheep and bulla wore received per Militiades on July 15th, 1873; sheep, bul's, and cows per ship George Thompson, on August 22nd; sheep per Lady Oetavia on August 25th; a bull on September 14th; and sheep per Zoroaster on September 29th. For all these Messrs Dalgety, Blackwood, and Go, were the agents. Few or none of them appear to have been published in the bills of entry for 1873, but they are found in those for the first quarter of 1874, during which period the vessels which brought them cleared out of this port.