Requesting you to communicate the contents of the above-mentioned letter
of the Secretary of Agriculture to the foreign office,
[Inclosure to No. 1132.]
Mr. Morton to
Mr. Gresham.
Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C., April 7, 1893. (Received April
10.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your note of the 30th ultimo inclosing copy of a
dispatch, No. 943, from the American minister at London, relative to
the restrictions upon the exportation of cattle from the United
States to Great Britain.
In reference to the communication of the Earl of Rosebery, which
accompanies the dispatch, and which alleges on the authority of the
board of agriculture that 18 animals affected with pleuro-pneumonia
were found among the American cattle from January 21 to February 14,
1893, I desire to restate the position heretofore taken by this
Department, that pleuro-pneumonia has been eradicated from the
United States.
The animals alleged to have been diseased have been traced to the
farms where they were fed; in many cases the entire lot in which
they were contained has been so traced, and in no instance, even
after the most thorough investigation, has it been possible to
discover any evidence of the existence of this disease.
In case pleuro-pneumonia existed in the localities where these
animals were obtained, it certainly could be easily discovered,
because the nature of the disease is such that no one would expect
it to disappear from any district in the course of a few weeks,
unless eradicated by rigorous sanitary measures.
The only remaining explanation of the appearance of pleuro-pneumonia
in Amercan cattle is that they were exposed to the disease while in
course of transportation from the farm to the ship. As the stock
yards where these animals are unloaded are constantly inspected by
veterinary inspectors of this Department, and as no case of
pleuro-pneumonia has been discovered in the United States for more
than a year, notwithstanding the constant inspection of live animals
and the post-mortem examination of more than 3,000,000 cattle at the
abattoirs, it can not be conceded that such an explanation is at all
probable.
[Page 353]
The American inspectors who have been stationed in England by the
courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government do not coincide in the
diagnosis made by the veterinary officers of the board of
agriculture, but hold that the animals in question were affected by
noncontagious pneumonia induced by extremes of temperature and
exposure during the voyage. That pneumonia should develop in a
certain number of American cattle from these causes is not
improbable, but is to be expected, and is a much more reasonable
explanation of the origin of these cases than is the assumption that
contagious pleuro-pneumonia has existed in so many parts of this
country without being discovered, notwithstanding a constant search
has been made for it.
As a further confirmation of the position of this Department, I would
state that specimens of the lungs of a considerable number of the
cattle alleged to have been affected with contagious
pleuro-pneumonia have been forwarded to this Department and examined
by the experts of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and the lesions
have proved identical with those found in the forms of pneumonia
which develop from other causes than contagion.
In view of these facts, together with the earnestness and vigor which
have been manifested by this Government in eradicating animal
diseases and in preventing their introduction, I hope that the
British Government may be willing to give this subject further
consideration, and that they may yet decide to remove the
unnecessary and burdensome restrictions which are now imposed upon
the trade.
I have, etc.,
