MEAT INSPECTION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 832, 30 July 1910, Page 10

MEAT INSPECTION.

Sir,— Kecently there has been some agitation : in reference to the slaughtering of pigs for consumption. This much vexed question has been ventilated in the press throughout Now Zealand during the last year' or two, and it is-perfectly amazing the apathetic attitude taken up by the Government. I am given to understand that at the present time tho regulations in the Slaughtering Act are of tho most anomalous nature. "Whilst tho Government is most solicitous in respect to any meat sent across the seas, they show no anxiety whatever over supplies consumed in tho Dominion. Why tho Government is paying more' attention to the health of the people in outsido countries will probably lake somo explanation. At the present timo most careful regulations are in foreo with the slaughtering of both beef and mutton, but with the pig, which from all accounts is very highly infected with disease, the Government is quite apathetic. Only the other day 1 noticed a report in one of the papers referring to the inspection of one of tho largest concerns which happens to be under Government inspection, and it was stated that the number condemned at that factory was alarming. If that statement is correct then there must be something radically wrong. ■ 1 am told that in New Zealand there are only something like four factories that enn- bacon from Government-inspected pigs, and taking into account that tWe are at least thirty different founds on the market, and out of this number' some four or five aro under inspection, it is very evident that bacon from diseased carcasses must find its ■any to the breakfast plate through tho

medium of the other factories. I can only come to tho conclusion that tho present Government is afraid to mako any movement for fair, of olfending someone, but it is high time that tho public as a whole demanded that somo radical change was mado, so ..that only good, clean' meat, free from diseaso, is placed on-.the market, in the interests of tho public health.—l am, etc., "JUSTICE." July 29.