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Authority to establish Milk Depots. The children's death rate
must remain at its present needlessly high figure, and if any
Municipal Authority shall dare to take the steps that would
effectually reduce it, law, finance, or red tape will be found in one
way or another to obstruct and kill the effort.
THE MARGARINE ACT.
As regards Butter, the persistent working of the "Margarine
Act," ineffectual though it be, has brought us to the position that
the public can, if they choose, protect themselves to an extent by
refusing to take any substance in a wrapper marked "Margarine"
when butter is asked for. This is, of course, no guarantee that
they will get value for money, not a bit of it.
The following illustration, one of many, shows how far and
whom the Margarine Act protects.
Quite recently I had under personal observation a certain
dairy shop, and late one evening I caused to be purchased by
three different agents (all working class women), a quarter of a
pound each of "eightpenny," "tenpenny" and "shilling."
They entered the shop separately and each of the three was
served from the self same lump of margarine. On analysis it
was found that this variously priced mixture contained a trifle under
four per cent. of butter fat. Each purchase was placed in a
wrapper marked "Margarine," consequently this impudent
swindle of margarine being sold at any price up to one shilling
per pound can only be exposed in reports and the like. The law
allows it, and there is no more to be said, except perhaps to warn
the public.
Enough has been said to show the newly made Councillor what
a vast difference there is between what he desires to do, and what
he is permitted to do by existing legal machinery.