The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28. BLACKLEG MORTALITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8055, 23 February 1906, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28. BLACKLEG MORTALITY.

Tim announcement we are able to make this morning tint instructions Imve been issued by the Veterinary. Department to suspend inoculating operations meantime, will be received with satisfaction by farmers throughout the Province. To li.ive continued to use the vaccine in the light of cm-rout events, would have been a most disastrous policy, and while we are of opinion that this step should have been taken some time ago, as soon as the unaccountable mortality was noticed, it is reassuring, even at

this stage, to know that an otlicia,! investigation is evidently being held. As pointed out by Mr Jas. Boddie, Provincial President of the Farmers' Union, in another column,] a very serious aspect of the question is that the dreaded disease has now been been communicated to districts that hitherto have been free from it. This undoubtedly reveals a very grave position, and one that must be accounted for, if Government inoculation is to be re-established in public confidence, which may only be done by a clear and authoritative statement as to the cause of the mortality. It will not be sufficient that a formidable array of possible contributing causes should be stated, as has been done up to the present. The only thing that will now allay the farmers' apprehension is a straight-out reply to the charges that some of the vaccine has been found to bo too strong, and other lots to be rotten. We are in possession of information in support of the allogitions that .'iiucli v.ixine was over-proof, and have been iiiformod that even after the lymph had been reduced to one third its strength, it was still so

strung thatcalvo.sdid not long.survive tliu inoculation. It oau readily be iinrlei'iitjjil that thu.se iiuinrilt; which received duses of this mixture at its full strength speedily .succumbed. In a previous issue we dealt with the allegation that some of the vaccine was so putrid as to he poisonous. Mr I3jildie's statement that the mortality, after a parcel of vaccine was used in the Eltliam district, rose immediately from less than one t), in some cases, fifty per cent, of individual herds, is sufficient to prove that something was most radically wrong. There is not the slightest do:ibt that some blunder has bean male. It cannot he charged against the farmers, nor should the Stock Inspectors be blame I, as until recently they have been inoculating thousands of animals with practically 110 loss. The only conclusion tii.it can be drawn is, as we have previously stilted, that something went wrong with certain parcels of the Viic.'iue manufactured at the Veterinary laboratories. The public have an undoubted l ight to know how the mistake is accountel for, and whether its recurrence is preventable. If a definite anil satisfactory statement in forthcoming, after imjuii-y, there is not the slightest re.ison to suppose that any objection will be raised by farmers to further inoculations. However, the matter is disposed of, the question of compensation for losses is one that will have to be faced by the Government.