The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1884. THE SHEEP ACT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1820, 22 October 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1884. THE SHEEP ACT.

We publish in another column that portion of the report of the joint committee on the Sheep and Babbit Acts which refers to the Sheep A.ct, The report of this Committee necessarily carries great weight, because the members of it are practical sheep-owners who thoroughly understand the intricacies of the question which has been relegated to them. Wo are not surprised to find that the verdict of the Committee confirms un opinion we expressed some time back, viz., that it was the administration of the Act rather than the Act itself which was at fault. The report emphatically condemns the failure of the department to eradicate scab in the colony, and assigns as a reason for it that the provisions of the Act have in infected districts been only partially enforced The Committee also indicates that officers in the past have been appointed in a lax manner, and that in the future inefficient officers should be weeded out. They give two years as a limit within which an officer ought to eradicate scab within an infected district, l'n this district we have been surfeited with the Sutton grievance, but if the late inspector for the Wairarapa is to be judged by the standard laid down by the Committee he is either an inefficient officer, or, if that be not the case, his chief failed to back him up in his efforts to clean the Whareama flocks, Either the one or the other alternatives are obvious, and we trust • thattheinvestigationintothe Wairarapa scab scandals will not stop short of the point of determining upon whose shoulders (he responsibility of the makdministratiot) of the Act in this 1 district ought to be laid, The administration of the Sheep Act ha 3 been made a party question in the Wairarapa, and settlers in this district are perhaps not impartial judges of it. for this reason the reports and investigation of Parliamentary Committees which are free from the bias and prejudice which has be,an manifested locally, are of special value.