THE DEMOBILISED HORSE

REMARKABLE SALE FIGURES

BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Public attention, quite naturally perhaps, is centred on the demobilisation of men from the once vast Army. But that great edifice, which was built up as the result of years of concentration on the part of the Empire, and which we know as the war-making machine, is also melting away in other directions. Take, as an instance, the hundreds of thousands of horses and mules employed by the British Armies in all the theatres of war. The public can have no conception of the silent, steady, day-to-day transfer of thousands of horses from military into civilian ownership. It has been going on in gradually increasing volume ever since Armistice Day. Since the War Office first began to sell last November, 57,948 horses and mules have been sold in the United Kingdom for a total of something like £2,000,000. Thus the national exchequer is so much richer, and the Government is relieved of the necessity of feeding nearly 60,000 animals. The astonishing thing about the sales, so far as they have gone, is that prices are getting appreciably higher the more the horses are distributed. To-day the demand is keener than ever, and apparently the average price goes up 2s a day on a total of nearly 60,000 horses! The explanation may be that buyers realise the horses now being disposed of are good for useful work, and so well have the sales been organised that the public have responded to the frankness and candour of the catalogues. There is a horse to suit all requirements and all prices – from the “rider” to the heavy draught, at a price from a “tenner” or £15 to well into three figures. The public would surely like to understand how the big dispersal has been brought about, and in order that they may do so it is necessary in a few words to sketch the position as it was on Armistice Day.

INTERESTING FIGURES

We were employing about 89,000 horses and mules in the United Kingdom, 382,000 in France, 142,000 (including camels) in Egypt, 59,000 in Salonika, 89,000 in Mesopotamia, 18,000 in Italy, 6,700 in East Africa, 17,000 newly purchased ones awaited shipment from the United States, and a certain number were en voyage across the Atlantic. Except these required for the Armies of Occupation and others earmarked for retention with the post-bellum Army, the big balance had to be disposed of. The admirable progress in relieving our armies in France of many of their best horses will be understood when it is stated that up to yesterday 28,657 have been landed in England from France. Many more thousands remain to come, but there are some tens of thousands that will never see England again. They are those which are considered past all work, and which have been humanely destroyed for food purposes in France. There are others which were not considered good enough to bring back to England, but which are of great value in assisting the work of agricultural and industrial reconstruction in the devastated areas. Just to show how keen is the demand in France for our horses, it may be mentioned that the average price realised up to date is £40, and as much as £46 for mules. It has been stated that 56,302 horses and 1,446 mules have been disposed of in the United Kingdom by the Director of Remounts up to the present. The average price up to date is about £32. Of course, the outstanding feature of the sales has been the steadily rising demand for heavy draughters. Having been passed sound and healthy in France, they have come at once into a lively market here, and observant people may have recognised the demobilised horse from the “8” brand on the near shoulder and immediately at the top of the leg, indicating, as it does, “surplus.” The brand is quite an honourable mark of war service.

PRICES OBTAINED ABROAD

Note now the prices obtained for our horses abroad. In France the horses have been making an average of £40, and the figure is the same in Egypt. In Salonika, where the mule was so largely used, the surplus horses have been making an average of £38; but what are we to think of Italy, where our horses have been making the extraordinary average of £76? In America the price has been £26, appreciably less than the mule average, but it must not be overlooked that the Americans had collected 200,000 animals awaiting shipment, and they, too, are now being dispersed. It will, I think, interest many people to know something of what happens to a horse which may be marked in France for repatriation to England. The collecting places are those base remount depots at the French Channel ports which played so big a part in receiving the animals when going on active service. From these ports, ships are leaving almost every day for Southampton, Tilbury and even Hull, while the train ferry is now employed running between Calais and Richborough in Kent. From the arrival ports they are distributed on trains to quarantine centres. A fortnight in quarantine and the horses are ready for sale in every county, and to show how well they are selling it need only be mentioned that at Ormskirk recently 600 sold for an average of £43. The demands in Scotland, the North of England, and East Anglia are keen and show no sign of diminishing; in the South of England they have been largely satisfied in all but the best heavy draughts, probably because there are so many units and three of the big remount depots situated in the Southern Command. At the moment the War Office is showing remarkable elasticity in its attitude towards this demobilisation of horses, with a scheme to loan out as many as 50,000 draught horses at a “rental” of £7 10s a year each, with free veterinary inspection. At the end of six years the horse becomes the absolute property of the lessee, but during the term the War Office may require it for a fortnight each year for training purposes. No one who wants a horse should be without one – except, perhaps, the man who is seeking a 200 guinea hunter or a 100 guinea polo pony. They are hard indeed to find at the moment.