THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8261, 15 October 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1906.

The tricks of the butter traae are revealed in the report of the Select Committee set up in England to consider "the better conduct and control of the trade in butter substitutes." "Faked" butieru, in which cottonseed oil and other extraneous fats are introduced, disclosed quite a now business in butter adulteration. "It was shown," says the report, "that certain firms aie engaged in the business of teaohing occupiers of factories how to adulterate butter with fat not derived from milk. The manufacture of suoii mixtures is contrary to the existing law, but the law cannot be put into operation because the mixtures are so skilfully compounded that the analysts cannot generally certify that they are not pure butter, and there is no power of entry into these factories unless it can be proved that the substanoe which is manufactured there is margarine." The committee, therefore, suggests that machinery should be provided, so that the law relative to the adulteration of butter with fat not derived from milk may be put into operation. Enormous profits were stated by several witnesses to be made by adulteration. One firm wbb declared to be making £20,000 a year clear profit by this meanH. Dr Bernard Dyer, public analyst, in his evidence, stated that a clever adulteration in a dairy could, and daily

did, defy all analytical skill. A oonstant duel was going ou between the adulterator and the analyst, and when the latter found some new or expeditious way of detecting foreign fats, the adulterator promptly improved bis prpneaa of adulteration to circumvent bin?. No power at present exists to inspect the "faking" factories unless they use margarine; and the uommittee consequently recommended that they should be liable to registration and inspection, and that no vegetable oils or any other possible adulterant should be brought into, stored, or allowed in any registered butter factory. The committee also proposes that nothing shall be sold in ! the name of butter which contains I more than 16 per cent, of moisture, and that the "milk-blended butter shall have a limit of 21 per cent, of moisture, and shall be sold under a name approved by the Board of Agriculture, such name not to be calculated to prejudice the sale of the article." The trade in imported butter was found to be in a satisfactory condition, but the committee recommended, for further protection, that the importer should be made responsible in every case for the purity of the article he sold.;