STOPPING CATTLE IMPORTATION.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2237, 19 May 1880, Page 3

STOPPING CATTLE IMPORTATION.

The Geraldine County Council have passed a resolution requesting the Government to issue an Order in Council prohibiting the importation of cattle to the South Island, whether from the North Island or the Australian Colonies. There seems to he no good reason for such a measure of protection. The colony is divided into a large number of cattle districts, in each of which provision is made for the inspection of stock, and until a district has been declared infected, owing to the outbreak of disease, it would bo unwise and unjust to carry out the suggestion of the Geraldine County Council. There have been changes made recently in the boundaries of some of the largest cattle districts in this Island and it is reasonable to suppose that the Government, before the alterations took effect, satisfied themselves with respect to the most convenient lino of demarkation. The settlers in the Auckland Provincial District are suffering severe loss and annoyance from the plague which has made its appearance in their herds, and although we think that at first there was an indisposition to admit the magnitude of the evil, if not t.o entirely deny its existence, that stage is passed, and the Cattle Boards in conjunction with the stock owners, are doing their best to stamp out the disease. We may rest assured that stock owners in other districts will do all they can to guard against the remittance of cattle from localities where the disease has already made its appearance, and in their efforts towards that end the law renders them the fullest assistance. The chances of the introduction of the plague into this part of the colony are very remote.— ‘‘ Wanganui Chronicle.”