MOISTURE IN BUTTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 135, 6 July 1909, Page 3

MOISTURE IN BUTTER

If there was one thing disappointing about the PaLmerston dairy conference it was' the albseuee of any resolution in regard to the regrettable water-logging practised by 1 some factories last season. Apparently the leading dairy company representatives of the island regard our lost reputation and the doubtful future oi the trade with equanimity. If the leaders of the industry do not realise the seriousness of the position it is' obviously a matter for the Department of Agriculture. • In this connection it should be pointed out that the waterlogging which has brought such discredit on the New. Zealand butter trade has not been general, but has been the work of a few factories, innocently, perhaps, in some cases. It stands to reason if something had been done to check the water-logging in the first place—an example made—the trouble would hav° been nipped in the bud. That this opportunity was allowed to pass is much to be regretted, especially-as the knowledge was available and the machinery was present. Analyses' were made of butter being exported, and under the New Zealand Act l(i per cent. Is the legal limtt; yet butters which had broken the law in this respect were sent forward for shipment, and, as we know from the London end, were actually exported, and yet nothing was done at this end to prosecute the offenders and thus teach a lesson, the value of which, in the light of subsequent events, would have been of enormous and farreaching significance. But nothing was done, except probably to give the offending factories eome fatherly advice. In view- of the most important gathering of dairymen in the year failing to take cognisance of the evil it. is obviously the duty of the Department- to do something now. We have not much to learn from the Victorian Department in regard to fostering the dairy industrv, but there is one thing it teaches New Zealand a lesson, and a very valuable : one. This is in regard to the moisture content of export butter. A factory can export a butter containing up to 16 per cent, of moisture, but the Victorian Department says very wisely if anything above 14 per cent, is incorporated the butter cannot be classed in the highest grade. Here is a very simple, as it is a most necessary, means of coutrolling the water content. Obviously it is absurd for a water-logged butter to carry the highest state designation of quality—it is plainly putting an official hall-mark of quality on a fraudulent article, whether the fraud be accidental or otherwise. Why cannot the New Zealand Department follow the excellent Victorian example? We have always prided ourselves on the completeness of our system of (butter-grading, but if the Department is to mark time in regard to water-logging New Zealand butter grading will receive a serious set-back. —WeTlington Times.