LAX INSPECTION OF DAIRIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9023, 9 January 1908, Page 4

LAX INSPECTION OF DAIRIES.

During the hearing, on Tuesday, of several charges against milk vendors in Christchurch for serious breaches of the Dairy Industries Act, it transpired that the provision for ; inspection was utterly inadequate. To give an inspector with but one assistant 600 sheds to inspect, as was stated to be the case, is ridiculous, and in some ways worse than useless. It establishes a false confidence in the minds of the consumer unaware of the true state of affairs, which may lead to serious results. The inspector concerned in the prosecutions referred to stated that it was probably four months since his previous visit to the shed of one of the defendants, and we can well understand the Magistrate, exclaiming, even elegantly, "A place might get mighty bad in four months!" It is simply scandalous on the part of the responsible authorities that such a state of things exists. What is the use of the Magistrate warning milk vendors generally that "the requirements of the Act would have to be complied with." The Act is not likely to be complied* with by the unscrupulous or careless among the dairymen who are not kept in constant touch with the inspectors; and it is impossible that that can be done under such circumstances as the Christchurch- prosecutions disclosed. It is time the Health Department saw to it that greater protection; is given to the public in the matter of the milk supply..