THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

effected; and I feel confident that if it is amended in
the way proposed in a Bill now in the hands of the
Attorney-General, the leading features of which have
received the assent of a large section of the sheep-
owners throughout the Island, the number of infected
flocks in Tasmania will be reduced within very
narrow limits before the end of 1872.

The feeling of antagonism to a Scab Act which
existed in the minds of very many intelligent sheep-
owners, in common with those possessed of less general
knowledge and consequently stronger prejudices, aris-
ing from imaginary difficulties and evils they believed
would result from the introduction of such a measure
into Tasmania, has almost entirely passed away.
The evils and difficulties have proved myths, -the
creation of heated imaginations carried away by the
erroneous idea that it was an unconstitutional
infringement of the liberty of the subject, and ran
counter to the popular fallacy that every man has a
right to do what he likes with his own; -in short, it
was represented by some as an Act far more suited to
the atmosphere of Russia or Algiers than a colony
of Englishmen. The dreaded evils, however, have not
made their appearance, but instead thereof a most
beneficial change in the appearance of the flocks
throughout the Island has become unmistakably
apparent to every man of candour and observation
who has had an opportunity afforded him of com-
paring the past, of only two years ago, with the
present condition of sheep in Tasmania, as regards
their freedom from scab and consequent increased
productiveness in wool, so far as that improved con-
dition and increased productiveness is traceable to
the absence of or greatly reduced amount of that
disease.

In several points the Act has been found defective.
Practical experience has shown that some of its pro-
visions are not quite applicable to the circumstances of
Tasmania in their present form, and require modifi-
cation; others again are found to be unnecessary, and,
although very harmless in themselves, may as well be
repealed; while at the same time it has become
apparent to me and to many others who have devoted
attention to the Act that it requires some serious
defects of omission to be supplied, more particularly
with reference to the dipping and travelling provisions,
on the proper amendment and stringent administra-
tion of which must depend whether the time shall be
short or protracted when the Scab disease shall cease
to exist in the flocks of Tasmania.

I believe that the Bill now in the Attorney-
General's hands, if passed into law without material
alteration, will effectually cover the defects of the
present Act and supply its deficiencies in every
respect, so far as my study of the subject and
observation of the working of the measure up to the
present time enable me to judge.

Although it is quite true that a vast amount of
good has already been effected, and is equally true
that with the present staff I believe I shall succeed
with the Act in eradicating scab from Tasmania
within the time stated when I introduced the Bill to
the Legislative Council, -viz., five years from the
date when the Act should become law, -still I feel
persuaded that if I had two additional Inspectors
during the next twelve months after the month of
December of this year, it would greatly facilitate the
speedy accomplishment of that most desirable object,
and at the same time be more economical in the end.
If the halfpenny per head had been allowed to remain
in the Bill as it passed the Upper House (in italics)
with the sanction of some of the largest sheepowners
in Tasmania, it would no doubt have afforded a fund
more than sufficient to cover the then estimated
current expenditure of the inspecting staff, if the
number of sheep in Tasmania had proved to be what

95
the Stock and Crop Returns indicated, taking an
average of four years, 1864-65-66 and 67; viz.,
1,736,946. The Stock and Crop Returns as taken at
that time, however, turned out most deceptive with
reference to the number of sheep in the Island, as the
same Returns made in 1870 showed only 1,531,187,
and the Returns made to me under the Scab Act only
gave 1,418,883.

The discrepancy between the number of sheep
returned in the Stock and Crop Returns for 1870
and the number returned to me under the Scab Act
may be accounted for in some measure from the fact
that persons taking the Stock and Crop Returns very
often include the same or portions of the same flocks
in two different districts. This is often the case with
some of the migratory flocks that remain a portion of
the year in the Lake Country. There is another
reason, however, which, in my opinion, accounts for
the bulk of the difference in numbers before referred
to, and it arises from a defect in the working of the
Scab Act as regards Returns and the mode and time
of making them. This defect I hope will be supplied
by a provision in the Bill to amend the Act.

But although the difference in numbers returned
in the Annual Statistics in 1870 and 1871 and the
number returned under the Scab Act can be accounted
for, I cannot in any satisfactory manner account for
the enormous falling off from the average of 1864 to
1867 as compared with 1870, viz., about 200,000
sheep.

The loss of sheep from fluke, and consequent
turning sheep into cattle-runs, would not reasonably
account for much more than one-half of this diminu-
tion; and if we take the export of wool from
Tasmania for a series of years from 1861 to 1870
inclusive, we are as far as ever from a satisfactory
solution of the difficulty.

The number of sheep and cattle in the Colony, as
shown by the Annual Statistics for the years from
1858 to 1870-71 inclusive, are as under :-

It will be observed that the reduction in the
number of sheep on Crown land is smaller in pro-
portion than the reduction on private property. The
prediction that the Scab Act would cause Crown
lands to be largely abandoned has turned out, as I
expected, a mere delusion. Instead of causing Crown
lands to be abandoned, it will ere long tend to
increase their occupation and enhance their value.
A reference to the Customs Returns discloses the
fact that no diminution in the quantity of wool
shipped from the Colony has taken place, although
there is an apparent decrease of nearly 400,000 sheep
since the year 1867. The quantity of wool shipped
in 1870, the clip of 1869, if we add the cargoes of
three wool ships, or 4,050 bales cleared out in
December, 1869, fully comes up to the average of