The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1888. DISHONEST RETAILERS.
With reference to the proposal to stamp meat exposed for sale m the Home market, the " Merchandise Marks Act " m operation m England would be the Act under which pains and penalties would be enforced m the event of its being discovered that a butcher had wrongfully placed upon his meat exposed for sale a trade mark purporting it to be any other description of meat than what it really was. The difficulty m keeping a really dishonest vendor from passing off as colonial meat the very worst of Home grown carcases, and selling colonial meat as the primest English is not altogether insurmountable though a conviction would perhaps take time before it could be secured. Meat cannot be analysed m the sam.e manner aB wines and many other things, wherein the analysis would show from whence they came with Borne degree of certainty. A shrewd suspicion as to the country from whence a given joint of meat was obtained might be held by an export, but it would be impossible to say upon oath that a leg of mutton m a butcher's shop with an English trade mark upon it was grown m New Zea land. Tho butcher is m the hands of his employes, and if he Bhould pursue a fraudulent course it would ere long como out, and then the penalty would | eat up all the profit of the dishonesty. The " Field " concludes an article bearing on this question as follows :— lf At the same time, although m the present state of tho law and under the existing custom of supply of Home grown meat m a live state, there seems to be little use m attempting to protect the Home producer and consumer by any process of stamping or ear-marking of joints or carcases, we still see good m the suggestion, if only it can bo hereafter carried out m a different form by the Legislature, Although it may be impracticable to stamp British meat before it reaches the hand of the fraudulent butcher, it might be easy to require by IStatute that all imported carcases should be stamped on certain portions of their surface before being offered for sale, even to the dealer. If so, the same result would be attained as if the British and not the imported Bieafc supply were not stamped. In either case the jtyo commodities would be distinguishable to the eye of the ordinary r«tail purchaser. The stamping wpuld be best performed abroad before shipment, A short Statute, enacting that all carcases not stamped m a certain manner would be liable to seizure at the port of debarkation, would meet the requirements of the case. Nor do we think that the colonial producer, apart from the morality of the system, would be peculiarly injured by the /•cgujations. " Colonial meat " would thus stand oa jts own merits m the market instead ,of jbeing, op p r ow ? a fraudulent trade term of reproach, £nd one qnder which the inferior sorts of British meat arc uold. Tho imported meat would no longer gejl a# identical with prime Home grown, but, as c counterpoise, its own market, on its merits, would no longer be invaded by the refuse of the Home market."
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Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1904, 28 July 1888, Page 2
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553The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1888. DISHONEST RETAILERS. Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1904, 28 July 1888, Page 2
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