Enclosure 3.
Statement by the Attorney General of his reasons for being in favour of maintaining for the present the existing Quarantine Regulations.
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1. The reasons for maintaining these regulations are not so pressing now as they were when the question was considered in Executive Council in last June. At that time the state of the Coast Ports and the circumstances of the Colony were such as make it appear (1) that unless the greatest vigilance was exercised, Cholera would very probably be imported, and (2) that if Cholera did get in everything was favorable for its spread. The case is somewhat altered now; we are nearly through the bot season, Cholera on the Coast Ports has subsided, and we are not likely to be thrown practically upon the protection of Quarantine any more this year.
2. The question raised in Executive Council was whether the existing system of Quarantine, which is in principle a system under which all ships and comers from infected places are placed in seclusion and under observation until certain precautions have been taken, should be continued, or whether the system of the Local Government Board which involves no seclusion except that of
persons and ships suspected or known to be actually infected, should be adopted in place of it.
3. The question was not simply which of the two systems was theoretically the most perfect; but whether it was or was not expedient, under the then existing circumstances, to abandon the existing system for a new and untried one: this Colony being at the time in urgent need of all the immediate practical protection that could be obtained,
4. In the course of the two or three years during which Quarantine Regulations had been in operation, the greatest difficulty had been experienced in getting them thoroughly understood and effectually carried out by the officers entrusted with that duty. But by carefully watching for weak places and providing for practical difficulties as they presented themselves, we had at last got the system into some- thing like working order, so that it really might afford substantial protection. On the other hand if we had introduced the new system we should certainly have been in a state of experiment and confusion for some months. No system of the kind could possibly be started in an efficient state at first. To make the change at the time appeared to me to be changing horses while crossing the stream, and to involve grave practical risks; and that seemed to be for us who were on the spot and who knew what those risks were, by for the most important point to be considered at
the time.
5. But even if there had been no question of immediate pressing danger, I should say that the existing Quarantine Regulations are for the present much better suited for this Colony than the Local Board System.
6. The mischief we have to deal with here is the case of ships coming from infected places which are only a few hours distant; and the danger is not so much
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