AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY; 13, 1875. "MEASURES. NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 425, 13 January 1875, Page 2

AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY; 13, 1875. "MEASURES. NOT MEN."

As we- are a pastoral and agricultural as well as a milling community, we presume bur readers will feel interested in each of these subjects. Those who are interested in? pastoral pursuits, will, we dare say, thank us for bringing before their notice some items from "The Report of proceedings, resolutions, &c, of the Conference of Chief Inspector of Stock for the several Australian Colonies, held in Sjdney in. .November, 1874." .Among. .the subjects J : discussed were the epidemic diseases of horned cattle and sheep, such | as pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, and catarrh in sheep, fluke, rot, and worms, and the direction that, legislation should take in relative to these. As regards pleuropneumonia, legislation is suggested the direction of enforced iimoculation, the giving notice of the disease when it breaks out, the destruction of store and travelling cattle, and the conveyance of fat cattle by roads the least likely to spread infection. Measures are also to be taken to prevent the importation of infected stock, and intelligence to be conveyed over the separate colonies, and also communicated to the Chief Inspector of neighboring colonies. The measures for the eradication of the disease seem to us exceedingly fair. Ist, that a fund be raised by a contribution on stock to defray the payment of compensation

and other expenses incurred in the prevention and extinction of the diseases in stock, and then out of this fund, as we understand, to remove every inducement to the owners of infected stock to conceal the fact of their being so ; all animals killed &c, by order of Government, be paid for by Government at a rate equal to their value at time of destruction. The regulations are also to embrace the intercolonial stock trade, and with a viiw-to this the colonies of New Zealand, Western Australia, and Fiji, are to be invited to consider the opinions of the resolutions opened at the conference, That the expense of this should de defrayed by stock owners only, is we think quite just. To do it out of the consolidation funds, or by a general vote, we would hold to be utterly unfair. All trades are liable to misfortunes, and all properties to loss and depreciation ; but, as a rule, such parties have to bear with the loss themselves, or bear it by a Mutual Assurance. It would be quite as just to render the general community liable for the losses of our merchant shippers at sea, or losses by fire on land, as to render them liable for the losses of stock. The contemplated legislation, therefore,"proposes raising a fund for compensation on all stock out of which all animals diqtroyed by order of the Government Inspectors may be paid for. The legislation seems to us just and equable. The report contains some valuable papers on how to deal with pleuro-pneumonia, " on worms," "on scab in sheep," " on fluke," Some of these we may either give in full in future issues or summerise.