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117
Your Committee are of opinion—
That if it is desirable to legislate for the purpose of securing a purer
and more wholesome supply of milk in England in general and
more desirable to legislate for London in particular, it is then most
desirable to legislate for the Boroughs in particular with a view
to a better administration of local self-government, and to enable
local authorities to protect their own ratepayers and traders.
That if it is desirable to economically and efficiently administer powers
for taking samples of milk for the purpose of bacteriological
analysis, the greatest economy and efficiency will be obtained by
conferring these powers 011 the Borough Councils, inasmuch as
their Inspectors who take samples under the Sale of Food and
Drugs Acts for chemical examination could most economically
and efficiently also take samples at the same time for bacteriological
examination.
That it is not possible, economically and efficiently, to separate the
administration for taking samples for bacteriological analysis from
that of taking samples for chemical analysis of the same article of
food, and, if the proposals of the County Council are insisted upon,
it will mean a large number of Inspectors being engaged by them
to do exactly similar work to that done by the Borough Council's
Inspectors of food, and will become unnecessarily irritating to
dealers and other traders.
That greater economy and efficiency lies in the method of proceeding
from the consumer to the producer than the reverse way is shown
by the fact that the Borough Council's Inspectors, when complaint
has been made or suspicions aroused with regard to milk, sample
the retail vendor, and if the retail vendor expresses innocence and
states the source of his milk supply, the milk of the dealer
supplying the retailer is next in turn sampled in transit at the
retail vendor's premises. If the wholesale dealer also expresses
innocence, and divulges the source of his supply, which may be the
farmer who is actually the producer, then the milk again is sampled
in transit at the railway station where received from the farmer.
By this means of sampling consecutively, step by step, from the
consumer back to the producer, it is possible to fix more closely the
responsibility, both for the genuineness and for the wholesomeness,
of the milk supplied to the inhabitants of the Borough.
Your Committee would also point out that the proposal of the London
County Council to commence by taking samples at railway stations and to
trace the milk through the various retailers to the consumer is a wrong and
costly method of procedure, inasmuch as it has been proved that at the
railway stations both in St. Pancras and Islington on more than one occasion
by taking samples promiscuously that over 98 per cent, of the milk sent to
London by farmers is certified as genuine, and that as under 2 per cent, is
found adulterated, the expenditure, time, and energy of discovering this two
per cent, by the methods suggested by the County Council will be out of proportion
to the results obtained.
Your Committee are of opinion that any attempt which should be made by
the County Council or any other body to deprive the Borough Council of such