RABBIT FARMING

Southland Times, Issue 18821, 14 May 1920, Page 6

RABBIT FARMING

A DEPUTATION’S ASSERTIONS. AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION. An Otago Labour deputation waited on the Minister of Agriculture at Wellington on Tuesday to discuss the rabbit problem, and an interesting discussion ensued. Mr Cook, president of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, said that last year there were several farmers in the who farmed rabbits all through the summer months. *An inspector who found their places infested with rabbits ordered them to poison. A plough was put through the ground but no poison was laid. It was all make-believe, Mr S. Boreham (liunedin) said clause 2 of the Act was un-British, because it gave inspectors power practically to ruin a farmer, and that was obnoxious, and did not square with the British idea of fair play. He gave an instance of a young man who took up 3000 acres of waste land, and in 11 months took off it 11,700 rabbits. An inspector went along one evening and saw rabbits going on to hisl&nd and the man was fined £lO. That man was leaving New Zealand and was going back to Canada. A magistrate had sai«i- that the Legislature could not have known what it was doing. The Minister: That is saying that a majority of the House of Representatives did not know what they were doing, Mr Boreham said the man who introduced the clause did not know much about it, and he was a Liberal Minister. The Minister: To bo only fair to him, I might say I was one of his principal supporters. Mr Boreham said clause 2 gave an opportunity for victimisation. The Minister: Can you give me any instance of victimisation by my department? Mr Boreham; I don’t say there is any, but I have been asked to take a job as inspector, and I The Minister: You don’t say you would victimise ? Mr Boreham: No, but I could. The Minister: Do you think the department would tolerate it for a moment? Mr Boreham; I have worked for more cunning people than your department, and I would have a great opportunity of getting back on those who kicked me out of their front door. The Minister: I am prepared to believe there is a great deal of cunning in the whole of (he rabbit business. Mr Boreham indicated that some rabbit farmers’ fines were paid by certain business people, who had leased the land. When netting was mentioned, the Minister said that netting was difficult to get to-day, and was only obtainable at a tremendous price, to which Mr Boreham retorted that this remark helped to show that I it was cruel to fire people, i The Minister: There are other methods of destruction. Ac a later stage of the discussion the Minister asked Mr Boreham if he asserted that the fines for farmers were paid by a certain firm. Mr Boreham said that was his conviction The Minister: Well, do you think it v.'ould be un-British if my men put him into court every month for the 12 months and got him fined £SOO a month for doing that kind of thing? Mr Boreham said it was not done to this man. The Minister said he had not been long in office, but there were a good many under observation. Mr J. MacManus (Dunedin) emphasised the point made by Mr Boreham about the great powers of the inspectors. The Minister replied that such matters were not being left to one inspector. Ho was asked to call in other inspectors. Mr MacManus advocated canning factories. The Minister: You say, then, that the rabbit is not an unrnix-cd blessing, because he is a cheap article of food? Mr MacManus said his point was it was unnecessary to put people to the expense of poisoning when they could exterminate the rabbit by commercialising him. Mr Nosworthy, in reply, said he could hold out no hops of an amendment of the law. He would stand by tho Act. Without a stringent law there could be no hope of eradicating the plague of rabbits, and the administration of that law must bo stringent. It was not quite correct to say that men were convicted under the Rabbit Act on the unsupported testimony of one man. He had given instructions that in every case an inspector with a prosecution pending should, before taking action, obtain the testimony of another inspector, both a* to the existence of rabbits on the ground, and as to the previous service of the notice on the pen-ron concerned. He intended to go on with the strict administration of the Act. In the North Island he knew that In some districts there had been something very like rabbit farming. He was not in a position to say of his own knowledge anything about the conditions in Otago and Southland, but he proposed to visit these districts and see the conditions for himself ns soon as opportunity offered. He was alive to the fact that rabbit-farming had been going on in some parts of New Zealand. The department did not want to take men into court for the sake of having them convicted. He wished them all to have a fair deal, but as Minister he would have to see that the law was administered, and he had to be firm. As to the proposal that the inspectors should be given power to put men on to destroy rabbits by poisoning or trapping, he was not sure that rabbit trapping did not tend to encourage rabbit farming. He was afraid that to make the rabbit valuable would induce rabbit-fanning, and he could not use Government money to subsidise rabbit farming. However, he would go 'to Otago and Southland and see the facts in that district for himself. If the facts wore as represented to him by the deputation, and trapping was in fact the most effective way of destroying rabbits, then as a practical man he would have to take the matter into consideration. The Government sought to destroy the rabbit, and to make any rabbit industry impossible. He was prepared to consider whether any rabbit export business should not he wholly done by the Government, and hj? thought it might he necessary to fix prices at such a level that no one would make any money out of it. so that there would bo no inducement to rabbitfarming.