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although it has served the commercial interests of foreign butter merchants
to import butters, some of which, by reason of the imperfect
care of the cows, fall below the English average, one is surely entitled
to hold that these commercial operations have resulted in the prejudice
of the English purchaser. Indeed, the butter is doubly prejudiced,
firstly, by the lowering of the standard which pertained for butter at
the time the Sale of Food and Drugs Act was passed, and, secondly,
by the risk which he now suffers of obtaining slightly adulterated
butter which the analyst is unable to distinguish from a genuine but
abnormal foreign butter. This view was clearly enunciated by a
French Commission appointed in 1901, for the purpose of examining
butters produced in the Netherlands. In their report the Commission
state: "The defective conditions under which the cows exist
when they produce butter poor in volatile acids justify us in considering
these products as abnormal. In fact, if the chemist, confronted
with butter poor in volatile acids, coming from Holland, and made
during the months in question, cannot conscientiously certify that the
butter has been adulterated by the addition of margarine, he has at least
the right to declare that it is abnormal butter. He is even justified,
in comparing it with the butter of our own country, in saying that in
France such a product is not a marketable article."
The case against Mr. Davison was instituted for the purpose of
maintaining the foregoing principles, and, although the DeputyStipendiary
did not feel justified on the facts before him of deciding in
favour of the prosecution, the language of his judgment suggests that
he was not entirely out of sympathy with the views urged upon him
on behalf of the Council. In any case the interests of the public
demand that the Siberian butter trade should be levelled up, even at
the expense of litigation, for the present position is only too favourable
to the dishonest trader. Nothing could be simpler than for such an
one to buy a small consignment of Siberian butter, and a large consignment
of adulterated foreign butter, mix the consignments (not the
butters) together in his warehouse and then produce in Court his Bill