ENCOURAGEMENT TO FARMERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1301, 8 June 1880, Page 2

ENCOURAGEMENT TO FARMERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE OAMARU MAIL, Sis, —My attention has been drawn to a letter signed " The Farmers Friend," which appeared in your paper of the Ist instant. The letter in question is, I take it to be, a friendly comment upon the action taken by the Committee of the Canterbury Corn Exchange, with respeot to the initiatory steps taken by it in order to prevent the use of sugar in the manufacture of beer, in lieu of good malted barley. Your contributor states.: "If the advocates of the proposed measure can really prove that beer made from sugar is injurious or dangerous in its use to Her Majesty's lieges, then by all means let a law be made to prevent brewers from making a beverage of such a nature. If this cannot be proved, why should the legislature be asked to pick out a single class of manufacturers, and prescribe to 3 them how to make their goods." lam at one with your correspondent, in oondomn- " ing all legislative interference in favor of ' supporting one class to the spoliation of ' another and more numerous one. ' The fact is, Sir, our constitution was ' never framed for suoh, " log rolling" business, as that of olass legislation. ' But in countries having manhood suffrage, strong democratic tendencies, and what! is now, in these enlightened days termed true "Liberalism," it is so. And, for 3 why 1 Because mob law has a predomi--3 nating influence, and as a rule every man | thinks, that it is the inherent right of a peoples Government to make laws for the ' benefit of his particular trade or interest, ' without the slightest consideration to the all important rights, namely : those of the consumers. But this was not the object of the Committee of the Corn Exchange referred to, Then the question crops up, what was the aim ? It was a most important one, i.e, : To endeavor to ! avoid having a spurious beverage palmed ' off on the consumers, and at the same time making it imperative to use malted ' barley instead of the substitute : Sugar, It is pleasing to find that the results o£ the recent Committee meeting of the Com Exchange has brought about a public controversy, I cannot do bettor than quote for the information of "The Farmers' Friend" in question the following which has been written on this very subject, namely : —" As a deranger of the constitution there can be no two opinions about colonial beer, if partly made up of the sugar compound, and that it iB entitled to a first plaoe in the category of constitutional destroyers—at least medical testimony says so. Is not the milkman prohibited by the inflexible law from adulterating, on the sly, his milk with an admixture of water and chalk? Is not the baker also prohibited from kneading his flour with alum 1 Then why should there not be a stop put to prevent brewers from using sugar as a substitute for good malt? Fop the fact has been proved, over and over again, that beer made with sugar ingredients is not nearly so wholesome as the brew made of good malt and hops. In confirmation of this the highest authorities of the day, both scientific and practical, unanimously agree that there is nothing like malt and hops for good beer,'' Then the great aim of the gentlemen who have been the first movers in the matter, the subject of this letter, is to have the law framed so as to plaoe the brewer precisely in the same category as the baker and milkman.—'l am, <X;c., A Member of tee Christchuroh Corn Exchange. Christchuroh, June 4, 1880. ♦— :