The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1883. The Adulteration Act

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 81, 11 December 1883, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1883. The Adulteration Act

We were not a little surprised by the inaction of the Borough Council in the matter of the appointment of a person to act as Inspector under the Adulteration Act, which came in force on the Ist instant. Such appointment is certainly not compulsory, but the necessity of it has been known for a long time, and several of the tradespeople themselves are strongly in its favor. We can quite understand the feeling of an honest dealer, who is not only willing, but desirous, that his goods should be guaranteed (as it were) to the public for weight and quality. It is more than possible that Councillors may be actuated by a false delicacy for, or sympathy with, men with whom they come in daily contact, and whom they may know to be models of commercial honesty or morality. This feeling — although honorable to themselves — should not prevent them doing their duty to the ratepayers by protecting them as far as lies in their power, from fraud or adulteration in articles of every day consumption. It may be that the absence of the retiring Mayor from the last meeting of the Council was the cause of the question not being broached, but still it was open for any individual Councillor to have drawn attention to the Act, and shown that the Council does not intend to ignore it altogether. If it is not intended to appoint an officer, it is the bounden duty of the Council to explain their reasons for not doing so. There is an idea prevailing that the bakers are the only tradesmen the Act will apply to. This is entirely erroneous, because vendors of every kind of food or drink come under its operations. We find in the schedules that drugs of all kinds and descriptions must be up to a certain standard of strength and purity, as well as the liquids vended by hotelkeepers. Butchers are punishable if their wares consist wholly or in part of a diseased or rotten animal or vegetable substance, whether manufactured or not, and in the case of milk, if it is the produce of a diseased animal. Any articles colored, coated, polished, or powdered, whereby damage is concealed, or it is made to appear better than it really is, or of greater value, make the vendors punishable. Eeducing it to a simple matter of money, say the annual cost to the ratepayers of an Inspector was £20; the real saving to them by increased weight and value of the articles of common consumption purchased would cover this amount 20 times over, and the traders themselves would be proportionately benefitted by being able to offer superior articles at slightly higher rates.