View report page

162
SANITARY LEGISLATION.
Butter and Margarine Act, 1907.*
7 Edw. 7, Cap. 21.
This statute carries one stage further the series of regulations
affecting the sale of butter and articles resembling butter, which have
been passed in favour of the agricultural interest.
Apart from more stringent provisions with regard to the manufacture,
importation, transport, and sale of margarine, the important part of the
statute is that dealing in a similar fashion with another butter substitute,
namely, milk-blended butter. This is described as "any mixture produced
by mixing or blending butter with milk or cream (other than
condensed milk or cream)"; but the Board of Agriculture is left to find
an appropriate name (not "suggestive of butter or of anything connected
with the dairy interest") under which it may be imported and dealt with.
Consequently, margarine is defined afresh, so as to exclude milk-blended
butter.
The provisions for the registration of margarine manufactories are
extended not only to manufactories of milk-blended butter, but also to
"any premises on which by way of trade butter is blended, reworked, or
subjected to any other treatment, but not so as to cease to be butter,"
and the presence of adulterants in such premises is prohibited. As to
butter proper, its importation when containing more than 16 per cent. of
water is prohibited; and the Local Government Board (not the Board of
Agriculture) is empowered to make regulations prohibiting or limiting the
use of preservatives. (Paterson's Practical Statutes.)
*Warrants were issued by the Council to the Medical Officer and the Sanitary
Inspectors, authorising them to enter premises in the execution of the various duties
placed upon them, and with the addition of the right of entry conferred by the
Butter and Margarine Act, 1907.