NOTES ON LEGISLATION

R. Whyte, writing in BEE WORLD  (excerpted for brevity)

Our editor has asked me to state broadly my objections to bee
legislation in general and in particular my objections to the Bill
introduced to Parliament last session. I look with loathing and
abhorrence on this ever increasing army of officials, who are
empowered to interfere and curtail personal liberty  and who put
endless obstacles in the way of production and exchange-trade.
Remember, once start on this policy of Government regulation and you
will find that with every failure to accomplish the ideal aimed at,
more and still more power will be put into the hands of officials till
ultimate disaster results.

Take the United States of America. Some States have passed their third
Bill, each one more drastic than the previous and each enacted on the
expressed failure of the earlier one; and now we have the considered
confession of a former State Inspector, Mr. Frank C. Pellet, now
Associate Editor of The American Bee Journal, backed by the opinion of
Mr. E. R. Root, Associate Editor of Gleanings, that these punitive and
intimidatory methods will not minimize disease incidence, and that
education of the beekeeper in how to treat diseases is the course to
be relied upon. Mr. Pellet has even asked his State to repeal its
diseases Bill.

What about Europe? There is no special law existing in Holland. I have
consulted Mr. Hans Matthes and he informs me that they have no
inspectors there. They have a government official, whose sphere of
action is principally educational, and who works in connection with
the powerful Dutch Association of Beekeepers. The clean bill of health
enjoyed by Holland is certainly not the result of any horde of
interfering inspectors. Take the Belgian example. Legislative action
was one one time proposed there, but on the advice of their
bacteriologist, M. Lambotte, this was dropped. The beekeepers of
Belgium then adopted an insurance scheme for the stamping out of
disease. This scheme worked quite smoothly and in a few years, I am
informed, successfully accomplished its object. They have neither a
Foul Brood nor Acarine disease situation in Holland or Belgium.

I am at one with the Editor of BEE WORLD when he says, "So far as we
are concerned, we shall certainly never uphold any legislation for bee
diseases which in practice is not fundamentally educational, which can
punish but cannot teach, and which does not heed scientific research."
Modern beekeeping is a fairly elaborate scientific business that needs
special training in what to do and more especially what to avoid
doing. BEE WORLD. June, 1921

-- 
Peter Loring Borst
Ithaca, NY  USA

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