The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 67

Conclusion

Conclusion.

In a few years more it will be acknowledged that the Rabbit I only agravated the evil it was intended to cure; that it took backbone out of the people; destroyed their self-reliance; [ unclear: rem] the responsibility from the right to the wrong place, and without any way assisting them, it generated their antagonism and [ unclear: w] their £30,000 a year. If that money had been expended in [ unclear: w] netting it could have remained the property of the [ unclear: Government,] might now possess 10,000 miles of it as an asset. The peopled [ unclear: w] have received a little needed assistance; the Government [ unclear: would] received a higher rent for a large area; and the stock it would [ unclear: i] saved would have paid all expenses; and the example that it [ unclear: w] have set, would have been a nail in the rabbit's coffin. If a [ unclear: di] had been fenced into small lots at the beginning, all the inside [ unclear: ne] might have been long ago removed, so that the mileage does indicate the good it might have done.

The pastoral interest was second to none, and its partial [ unclear: fa] through the rabbit pest is quite sufficient to account for our [ unclear: sha] the depression. Statistics say nothing about the cost of product and therefore know nothing of our profit and loss accounts, [ unclear: which] be all on the wrong side.

The decay of Dunedin; the burning of other places, and the [ unclear: flig] the Insurance Companies are indirectly attributable to the [ unclear: rai] And if those awful rabbits were only equally distributed through New Zealand, there would be no difficulty about expending all avail funds upon wire-netting. Distributed they will be, for a certain and crippled as certainly will be our resources to deal with [ unclear: the] we do not take them in hand at once.

Fancy, at a gathering of Australian Inspectors, one bringing a [ unclear: p] of wire-netting and another a young rabbit, and all that [ unclear: gala] Owens a standing around boosting, poor little bunny through meshes and tugging him back by the ears, to demonstrates [ unclear: as approval] of wire-netting and the reason for their present system, which wasted £900,000—absolutely wasted it, for the land they [ unclear: prossed] to clean is only cleaned of grass.

A Victorian Government gave 6d. a foot for sharks caught in [ unclear: obson's] Bay. Then a Yankee skipper reported in Sandridge that [ unclear: ere] were one million and twenty-eight sharks coming up the South [ unclear: hannel]. The emptiness of the Melbourne fish markets stopped the [ unclear: nus,] but were it not for that, all the fishermen would still be after [ unclear: arks], like these Inspectors after rabbits, and with a like effect. [ unclear: What] quantity of netting that £900,000 would have purchased, which [ unclear: ould] have been at least an asset; but instead of that, it has gone to [ unclear: eate] an injurious vested interest that is doing its utmost to perpetuate [ unclear: farce]. And no doubt we will have like performances in New Zealand [ unclear: e] moment it is suspected that rabbit-proof fencing is going to become national matter. Then we will hear of Inspectors that have seen [ unclear: bbits] going through the netting; rabbits going under it; rabbits [ unclear: ing] over it; but above all things we will hear of Inspectors that [ unclear: ve] seen rabbits climbing it, although no other men in New Zealand [ unclear: ay] have done so. And there is not the slightest hope of a reformation [ unclear: less] the people use their own common sense, try experiments and [ unclear: rm] their own conclusions.

The New South Wales Government offers a reward of 2s 6d per [ unclear: head] for all rabbits captured in the Bourke District. This renders [ unclear: bbit] catching a very lucrative calling indeed, and raising them will [ unclear: ry] likely become a prosperous industry in that district now.— Varrnambool Standard Sup., July, 1887.

Some enterprising scientist in South Australia got up a fact about [ unclear: troducing] scabies from Germany, and was in a fair way of flourishing [ unclear: til] some pertinent and suggestive enquiries from the Victorian [ unclear: remier] gave the proposal a shock from which it might have never [ unclear: covered] but for our own Chief Inspector, who revived it in his report [ unclear: r] 1886.

It is admitted that a disease may assume a different form on the [ unclear: fferent] hosts it affects. And how could we hope to compete in the [ unclear: zen] meat markets if it was even hinted, that our pastures were [ unclear: ntaminated] with some loathsome disease, to which the poverty of our [ unclear: ock] in competition with rabbits would make them especially Liable.

The gentleman whose business it is to protect our stock, turns up [ unclear: e] foremost advocate for such a hazardous experiment. One is almost [ unclear: d] up to the suspicion that there may be a method in his madness, [ unclear: at] he foresees plenty of inspectings from such a contingency, and [ unclear: that] might prove as profitable to Inspectors as the scab has been.

All his subordinates may be able men and conscientious, but [ unclear: hi] alone is responsible for his own report; and what can be expected an organisation whose head is so palpably deficient.

We know that the dog and the rabbit foster for each other [ unclear: h] disease, which seems to injure them both, but as everything has [ unclear: i] an embryo scientist may question whether the dog gives it to [ unclear: the] to make it easier caught, or whether the rabbit gives it to the [ unclear: d] get rid of an enemy. Be that as it may, the parasite [ unclear: appears] only a useless tyrant, though in reality it may be one of [ unclear: na] faithful servants. There is another disease affecting several of domestic animals, but especially rats. A poor weakly rat [ unclear: that] choice of food, may become affected with trichinæ, then it will [ unclear: b] easiest caught by a ferret or cat, who may bring home its [ unclear: pri] cause the death of its whole family. So that in this case, [ unclear: i] of the disease being an injury, it does a double service to the of rats, by removing a useless member and killing several [ unclear: en] We know that the presence of the dog causes an [ unclear: appreciable] stock through disease; that a little snail may become [ unclear: the] mother of fluke; and that, in the immunity of rabbits from [ unclear: diae] have a shadow of hope that their enemies may provide them [ unclear: with] thing to lessen their prosperity and increase their own-mutually accommodating disease to adjust the balance [ unclear: between] But then there is a shadow of doubt about what diseases [ unclear: the] may provide for our stock, may be, some of those that we [ unclear: dre] much, or hydrophobia for ourselves. So that it would [ unclear: become] this matter, to proportion our cautions to the depth of our [ unclear: igno]

Those misty scraps leave us a lighter task to believe that [ unclear: "in] not men, may rule the world," and that they and their [ unclear: unseen] administer the Laws.

In Australia, ten years ago, the people grudgingly [ unclear: spent] thousand pounds fighting the rabbits. Now they are sorry they [ unclear: d] spend a few millions to confine them; and ten years hence [ unclear: th] be very sorry they did not spend fifty millions of [ unclear: pounds.] the effect of rabbits in New Zealand is only as a passing cloud pared to what it may be in Australia, where the destruction of [ unclear: tion] in the interior may intensify their droughts and make country not worth living in—may fulfil the prophetic history "In the beginning the white men took Australia, [ unclear: driving] black men. Then came the rabbits and drove out the [ unclear: whit] So that they may be all coming over here some day to stay. [ unclear: A] our mortgagees will get their money, for land will be [ unclear: about] acre. And then we will have to start a convict [ unclear: colony] Kermadec Islands to hold rabbit poachers out of New Zealand

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