69. The Destructive Insects Bill1 was hurried through Parliament just before the recess in 1877, on account of the scare which had been raised by the reported appearance of the Colorado Beetle. Its object was of course to protect the crops of this country from the ravages that had occurred in America: but there was a sufficient precedent to follow in drafting the Bill. It was proposed to give the Privy Council power, resembling that which it possessed with reference to cattle diseases, to prohibit the importation of any articles which were likely to bring this terrible visitor to our shores, and also to order the destruction of any crops in which the beetle had appeared. It was further proposed that the local authority should be vested with the same power which it had under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act. 2 70. Mr. Chaplin's Wildfowl Preservation Bill3 met with little serious opposition though some exception was taken to the means provided for attaining its object by those members who had strong views against game-laws generally. It may therefore be sufficient to note its object by quoting the preamble. Whereas the Wild Fowl of the United Kingdom forming a staple article of food and commerce have of late years greatly decreased in number by reason of their being inconsiderately slaughtered during the time that they have eggs and young; and whereas owing to their marketable value the protection accorded to them by the Act of the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter seventy-eight, intituled 'An Act for the protection of 140 and 41 Vict. c. 88. 2 Lord Sandon, 3 Hansard, ccxxxvi. 780. certain Wild Birds during the breeding season insufficient; it is expedient therefore to provide for their further protection during the breeding season." 71. The short debate in the Lords on the Seal Eishing Greenland Bill1 showed most conclusively how impossible it is to give free play to the action of private competition where the perpetuation of resources of any kind comes in question. It appeared that the Seal Fishing was conducted by about 60 ships of different nations, so that the number of owners cannot have been so large as to render private arrangements in their own eventual interests a matter of great difficulty, yet the trade was carried on in such reckless fashion that there was every reason to expect the extinction of the species and annihilation of the trade, unless Parliament established a close time for seal fishing and co-operated with other powers for the maintaining it. According to a document communicated by the Swedish Government "the captains give heartrending descriptions of the manner in which the fishing was conducted this year-owing to its having commenced too soon, namely at the close of March. There was this year a good prospect of all the vessels being able to return full. Thousands of pregnant female seals were to be seen swimming about, preparatory to giving birth to their young on the ice, over the shoals frequented by the shrimps, on which the seals principally subsist. But the vessels were lying in wait, and such a destruction commenced that after the lapse of three days the fishing was utterly destroyed, and thousands of young seals were heard crying piteously after their slaughtered mothers. The young seal is worthless until it is three or four weeks 1 38 and 39 Vict. c. 18. old. If the fishing is conducted in this manner for a very few years more, the seals will be utterly exterminated." Private agreements had been started on this matter, but the matter was so urgent that it seemed necessary to apply for Parliamentary interference, in order to protect these valuable resources from reckless waste. CHAPTER III. SOCIAL ENACTMENTS IN THEIR ECONOMIC BEARINGS. 1. Measures enforced through the ordinary Courts. 72. THE measures we have hitherto considered have been directed towards securing national wealth-in the wide sense in which the word has been used above (p. 117), for all of them were intended to save or increase the physical means of maintaining the national life: and since they are thus directed to physical ends, argument about them may attain to a measure of precision, as their effects are susceptible of fairly definite calculation (p. 129). But when we turn to discuss social enactments the case is entirely altered, since it is much more difficult to guess how far the various measures are likely to attain their objects, to assess the importance of the object when attained, or to weigh the respective loss and gain when the object can only be accomplished at the expense of incurring certain obvious disadvantages. The onus which rests on the promoters of such measures is accordingly very heavy, and many of them have only been carried after long years of struggling to convince public opinion, or in certain exceptional conditions of public feeling. It will be convenient to take the enactments which had such objects in two groups, according as it was possible to pass a law redressing a grievance, or conferring a privilege and then to leave the matter to the ordinary courts of law, or as it was felt necessary to create a new machinery for resisting an evil tendency or maintaining some one in the possession of a privilege. It must be obvious that in cases where we have to rely on new and untried machinery, there must be much less certainty in attaining the object we have in view, than in cases where we can trust to the action of the ordinary courts with the powers and practice we are already familiar with. Among these social measures I have somewhat doubtfully included the important series of measures which were intended to diminish the risks connected with a workman's calling; though they are so closely connected with the vigour of the population that the subject might perhaps have been more properly treated in the first part of the previous chapter: but while the diminution of accident may only prevent the destruction of the vigour of comparatively few, the diminution of the risk of such accidents affects the comfort of quite a large class, and I have therefore included the subject here. 1 73. To diminish risks to life or person is so admittedly a desirable object that some enactments with this view have been passed without either delay or discussion. Such were the measures insisting on the fencing of thrashing machines 1 and dealing with boiler explosions :2 on the other hand the series of laws intended to diminish the risk of life at sea has given rise to constant and somewhat acrimonious discussion, and involved the development of a public department for assisting to secure this desirable end. A somewhat similar controversy has raged 1 41 and 42 Vict. c. 12. Р 2 45 and 46 Vict. c. 22. |