THE RABBIT PEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8126, 4 June 1906, Page 3

THE RABBIT PEST.

PROTEST AGAINST EXTERMI- ' NATION EXPERIMENTS. MINISTER OF LANDS' REPLY. THE RABBIT MUST GO. Received 4, 12.12 a in. Sydney June 3. The Minister of Lands, repljing to a deputation from Gundagai protesting against Dr Dantyz's experiments, said the Government had not the slightest intention to let loose any disease which would have the remotest possibility of endangering public health, A large amount of misapprehension existed on the question, and the opposition came mostly from those interested in the rabbit preserving industry. The Government were not such absolute lunatics as to take any risk in such a matter. Received 4, 12.20 a m. Sydney, June 3. The Minister continued that he would rather walk out of office tomorrow, than do anything to make the rabbit industry a permanent one, to the disadvantage of the shcepowner and the farmer. The rabbit must go if the man on the land was to stop.

Tlie Government had spent six hundred to seven hundred thousand pounds in fighting the rabbit, which were now more numcrons than ever. He was within the mark iu saying that the shrinkage in the capital value of land due to the rabbit pcsl, was eight to ten million pounds. Within fifteen years the value of Western division property I had decreased from eighty to ninety per centum.