COLONIAL V. FOREIGN BUTTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 3, 4 January 1896, Page 4

COLONIAL V. FOREIGN BUTTER.

The results of tho analyses of imported butter which have just been published by the Board of Agriculture at Home cannot fail to bo of great benofib to butter makers and butter exporters in these colonies. Since last September, the Board has been conducting a series of careful investigations, with tho object of ascertaining the quality of tho various brands of butter which are received into the Britishmarketfrom foreign countries and the colonies. In that tima it has submitted .to chemical examination no less than 291 samples, and the verdict returned by the chemists is singularly favourable to the colonial product. While 79 per cent, of the Dutch, German, and Danish shipments were found to b8 adulterated, tho colonial article proved to be butter, pure aud simple.

Wo own that we are somewhat surprised to find thab adulteration on tho scale the report reveals was going on, At least, we imagined that the Danes, who havo been the leaders of the world in the application of scientific methods to the making of butter, would not, in the main, have been open to such an accusation ; but Denmark is mentioned as equally guilty with Holland and Germany. She, with her model dairies and factories, has apparently been supplying the great British public with something other than pure butter with which to sweeten the staff of life? She. too, i has fallen into the paths of trickery and deceit by which commercial men and nations, co their cose, se6k to reach success. Ab the outset there is little doubt thab sho did adhere to strictly honest methods and gained for her butter a name and a position in tho British market second to none. But whsn the colonies came into tho field against nor she found herself hardly pressed. VVhab could little Denmark with her limited territory, her highly-rented land and her severe winters, do against the competition of those lands of summer beyond the sea where tho pastures are green all the year round, tho climate ever genial, and tha soil almost to be had for the asking. It was alwayo a wonder to us, knowing the circumstances she was placed in, thab she has continued the struggle so long in'the face of falling prices. Bub she had her good name—an enormous capital in itself —and tho established position in the market which it had secured to her. It now appears that she haß been illegitimately trading on that good name. Unable to hold her own against her rivals by legitimate methods, she had recourse to dishonesty in an evil hour and managed to tide over a few bad years. But the nemesis which pursues the dishonest trader has overtaken her at last, and sho awakens too late to a recognition of the fact that alter all honesty is the beat policy.

It is hardly aesumiug too much to suppose that this has been the history of Denmark's career in tho bubtor - making industry. Whatever may be tho extent) of tho adulteration she ha 3 practised, id is clear from the report of the Board of Agriculture thsib her batter-makers, or her exporters, or both combined, have been guilty of passing off on tho English market, by tho name of pure butter, a substance that was nob pure butter at all. That the imposition was not discovered sooner may ap-

pear strange, but it only proves how singularly ignorant the public are in fcheea macoers until they are officially enlightened, and hew easy it is for an article with ij good uEtme which it has long ceased to merit to almost excludefrom the market a superior product. Now that) the adulteration practised by the buttermakers of the Continent has been proclaimed by a responsible body we may expect to ccc a great stimulus given to the export of butter from the colonies. John Bull is a somewhat slow gentleman and he is terribly prejudiced, but once let him understand thafi ho has been fooled, and the party who fooled him will have little chance of regaining his confidence. Although there ia not the slightest doubt that adulteration on «a varying scale goes on among the manufacturers and suppliers of articles of food ab Homo, aud ia tamely submitted to by the people so long as they have no precise knowledge ot the facts, yet Englishmen are very particular about the quality of anything, and hare a rooted antipathy to everything that is nob what it pretends to be. Impure food of all things is an abhorrence to the great bulk of tho inhabitants of the United Kingdom, and there is no article they aro more particular about than butter, which, with bread, forms such an important part of the dietary of the middle and lower classes. They will not submit to adulteration of the firab any more than they will permib "chalk, and alum and plaster to be sold to the poor for bread " if they can prevent it.

Colonial butter-makers and dairy farmers have just cause-to congratulate themselves on the report of the Board of Agriculture, and they will now see the wisdom of our Government in taking precautions that nothing bufe good wholesome butter should leave the colony. In the past we have nob been entirely free from the sin of adulteration in one at least of our exports, and in that way we may have done injury to our good name. We have at this moment, on the authority of the British Board of Agriculture, an unsullied reputation so far as regards our butter. Let us ccc that we guard it very jealously as a thiDg of infinite value, and there is every reason to hope that eva shall gain an unassailable position for the article in London when we have still further perfected our methods of preparation and carriage. Our present exports to the Old Country represent only a very small fraction of tho amount received there from abroad. In 189* about 129,000 tons of butter was imported into Great Britain ; of this quantity Sweden sent 13,316 tons, Denmark 55,125 tons, Germany 6,888 tone, Holland, 8,258 tons, France, 21,232 tons, Canada 1,045 tons, United States 1,562 tons, and all other countries including Australasia 21,379 tons. New Zealand's contribution was about 2,000 tons. With her wonderful advantagesof soiland climate, and in view of the circumstances we have been referring to, we may confidently look forward to the colony taking a much more prominent position as an exporter of this valuable staple.