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12
Apparently the proper thing for your Committee to do is to
support the Chelsea Borough Council, as desired in their letter
of August 4th, 1904, and to send a communication to both the
President of the Local Government Board and the Board of
Agriculture, pressing for an amendment of the Act on the lines
suggested, and which is as follows:—
"That the Local Government Board and the Agricultural
Department be requested to introduce a Bill in Parliament
next Session, having for its object the repeal of the Warranty
Sections in the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts of 1875, 1879,
and 1899, and the insertion of such clauses as would enable
the vendor, who has a warranty, to recover the penalties
and costs of a conviction by simple civil process from the
warrantor."
Legislature on the lines suggested would, of course, meet the
immediate difficulty of these milk warranty-defences without
touching the much larger question of the practical administration
of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts as a whole.
Until the legislature shall prohibit the sale of adulterated or
mixed articles of food, except as such, and shall once for all put an
end to " Contracting out" by means of warranties, Notices, and
other means (all of which are taken advantage of by dishonest
traders to foist off upon the public an article inferior to the one paid
for), there is not much prospect of these Acts giving the public the
full protection desired or expected.
To return to the question immediately under consideration, it
appears highly desirable, having regard to the importance of milk
as an article of food, that all Health Authorities should be given
ample powers for establishing throughout their districts depots for
the production and sale of milk.
This, the staple food of children, invalids, and aged person s
has too long been left to the mercy of the dishonest, to the handling
of the uncleanly, and to the care of the "middleman," with his
"chemicals," "colouring," and "preservatives," all of which are
inconsistent with a low death rate and healthy life.