His first speech in the House of
Commons, delivered very soon after its assembling, was on the occasion
of the second reading of the Cattle Diseases Bill, on the 14th of
February, 1866, when he supported Mr. Bright in his opposition to the
proposals of Mr. Lowe for compensation to their owners for the
slaughter of such animals as were diseased or likely to spread
infection. His complaint against the bill was succinctly stated in two
sentences, which fairly illustrated the method and basis of all his
arguments upon current politics. "It compensates," he said, "a class
for the results of a calamity which is borne by the whole community.
In justice, the farmers who have not suffered ought to compensate
those who have; but the bill does what it ought not to have done, and
leaves undone what it ought to have done, by not equalizing the
incidence of the burden upon that class, inasmuch as, from the
operation of the local principle adopted, that portion of an
agricultural community who have not suffered at all will not have to
pay at all, and those who have suffered little will have to pay
little; while those who have suffered most will have to pay a great
deal.
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