MARGARINE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 290, 27 August 1918, Page 7

MARGARINE

Sir, —If there is one privilege more than another, that we havo to be thankful- for in this thrice-blessed land, it is the super-excollence of our butter—it is a privilege greater than the majority of us are aware of. Speaking personally, after a seventeen-years' sojourn in London, and compelled to eat a mixture of margarine and butter iveek in and week out for that length of time, 1.-ccause it was absolutely impossible to bay anything else, I feel wo should bo up and doing, and strike quickly and hard for the purity of our tea and breakfast tnble. Margarine has arrived. As I write, I have a pamphlet before me in which a purely philanthropic individual asks; "Why use butter at Is. Bd. ii poiind when we can give you 'margarine' just as good for Is.?" I could answer that I nse butter beoauso i I know it is made ,of butter-fats ox-!

triicted from tho milk of tho domestic cow, an animal I could tuko off my hut to lor tho prosperity sho has helped to bring to tlusj happy land, and J. want to seo no rival arise to oust her from her proud position. I shall bo told that margarine at its prico will ho a lrton to thousands the.so harfl times. Sir, I doubt it. The poorest of us would rather wit a little- less butter and know it was pure goods. 1 .shall Ijr told that margarine will only bo sold as such, and be distinct as an article of commerce. Again I doubt it; I know human nature, and how margarine has been misused in the Old World, and I say without hestitation wo should light tooth and nail against its advent hera.

Tho 1/ondoii County Council by-laws stato that any mixture of jnargarino and butler oifered for 6ala must be ticketed and htbellcd as such, but it is seldom done, and it is nn open secret that "butter" camoullaged with margarine has kept open tho doors of tho provision dealer m the Old Country for the last twenty-five years. A friend of mine, a provision dealer in tho west of London, ono day said to me, ''Thank God for New Zealand butter, it will hold tho moflt margarine." To conclude: What is margarine? Well, Sir, your courtesy us to available space, together with the present price of stationery, precludes me going into that—tho subject is too vast. A. H. August 22.