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134
In 1887 a Margarine Act was framed. It defined Margarine and
prescribed how every packet of this food should be marked with the
word "Margarine" in letters not less than one quarter of an inch in
height. Subsequent regulations changed the definition of margarine
and increased the size of the letters on the wrapper to three quarters
of an inch square.
In the year 1899 a second Sale of Food and Drugs Act was passed,
giving effect to the recommendations of a Committee appointed five
years earlier. This Act dealt with butter, margarine, cream and milk.
It limited the proportion of butter in margarine to 10 per cent. Among
other things it gave power to make subsequent regulations dealing with
these foods: and both the Sale of Milk Regulations, 1901-12, which
specified certain standards for milk, e.g., that it should be regarded as
adulterated if it contained less than 3 per cent. of fat, and the Sale of
Butter Regulations, 1912, which, among other things, limited the
percentage of water in butter to 16 per cent., were brought into force
by yirtue of the authority of the 1899 Act.
It will be seen that food legislation is too complex to be easily
interpreted chronologically; and it will perhaps be useful to take two
important foods, milk and meat, and by tracing the successive measures
taken in respect of them, to indicate the way in which food legislation
has developed.
The most recent legislation in respect of milk is the Milk and
Dairies Act of 1926. This has been devised with a view to securing a
comprehensive and simple system of controlling the production, handling,
and distribution of milk and for the prevention of contamination. It
arranges for veterinary inspection of cows with a view to eliminating
infected animals from herds. It empowers a Medical Officer of Health
to stop a milk supply or suspend an employee for a specific period. A
similar measure is the Milk and Dairies Consolidation Act of 1915,
which came into force in September, 1925. This was also designed with
the object of preventing the sale of tuberculous milk; and it also made
it an offence to sell milk from animals suffering from foot and mouth
and other diseases. It provided for the slaughter of tuberculous
animals.
In 1922 the Milk and Dairies Amendment Act came into force : it
dealt with the registration of purveyors of milk and gave power to