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153
being indicated, and the statement referring to margarine, and not to
"fat of margarine, it is quite possible that some dealer who is proceeded
"against under it, might persuade the Court that it had no meaning.
"What I understand is, 'The fat of margarine shall not indicate
"a higher saturation figure than 10 for the volatile fatty acids contained
"in it by the Reichert Meissel process of analysis.''
"In the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, Section 8, the amount of
"butter fat in margarine fat is limited to 10 per cent. It seems a pity
"that the standard could not be arranged to be identical in the two
"countries."
The Committee concurred in my view that Dr. Teed's observations were of
sufficient importance to be brought to the notice of the Netherlands
Government, especially the last paragraph advocating international
agreement as to the permissible amount of butter in margarine. This course
was adopted, and on 25th March, 1907, the Consul-General for that country
wrote to say that he had received a request from the Netherlands Department
of Agriculture to convey their thanks to Dr. Teed for the interest he had
shown in the matter, and was desired to point out that the figures mentioned
in the Clauses to which Dr. Teed had referred applied to butter as well as to
margarine, to molten and filtered fat; further, that the opinion was expressed
in a review of a synopsis of the Bill only.
With regard to the progress of this measure, the Consul-General of the
Netherlands informs me that under present political conditions the Government
that came into office quite recently will have to decide whether it will take
over the Bill from its predecessors.
When the magnitude of the figures relating to imported butter are considered,
it will be seen that any legislation in any country, exporting that
article to the United Kingdom, dealing with the control of manufacture and
the precautionary measures observed for safe-guarding its purity, must be
of special concern both to the trade and to the public.
As mentioned elsewhere in this report, our own manufacturers of butter
can now only carry on their business under special restrictions to ensure the
purity of their products, and unless the maker of butter imported from abroad
is under similar control, the public must suffer, and the home producer be
placed at a disadvantage.
In this connection the following figures are not without interest. They
are extracted from the latest Custom House returns, and show the quantity
and the value of butter imported into the United Kingdom during 1906.