BOOTLEGGING BUTTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 11

BOOTLEGGING BUTTER.

OVER CANADIAN BORDER

GANGSTERS FORSAKE WHISKY

WITH CAMOUFLAGED TRUCK

LOADS.

MR. T. M. WILFORD'S DISCOVERY

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

VANCOUVER, April 2

Sounding the praises and claims of his country Hon. T. M. Wilford has been an intensely interesting visitor to Canada, making a close study of the Dominion in the course of his travels across British North America on his way from New Zealand to England.

Coming from a country famed for its superior quality of butter and cheese, Mr. Wilford devoted much of his time to ascertaining the latest phases of these industries* in Canada, in view of the fact that considerable discussion has arisen recently in Canada owing to the large importations of butter into the country from " down under."

When he arrived in Montreal, just prior to hurrying on to Halifax to board the Cunarder Aurania for England on his world tour, the popular Parliamentarian of New Zealand was amazed to discover strange conditions in the butter business, and ejaculated: "To my astonishment I have discovered that you have in Canada bootleggers who deal, not in Whisky, but in butter." Explaining his discovery, Mr. Wilford said that he was greatly interested in the traffic of dairy produce, New Zealand being a foremost producer of these requisites. He said that while in the Province of Saskatchewan he talked with leading dairy managers there, and was told of recent activities involving the illicit transportation of butter across the international border into the States. He eaid that this went in truck loads with mudh camouflage, and all the traditional secrecy of -bootlegging. Circumstances have been highly favourable to the " butter bootleggers," according to the New Zealand Parliamentary member, and there are several adventurous gangsters who have forsaken whisky bootlegging to deal in butter. Mr. Wilford incidentally praised the high quality of Canada's dairy produce, and expressed the prediction that both Canada and New Zealand will soon enjoy even mpre prominent positions as dairy producing countries. Accompanied by his wife, |^ r - Wilford, it transpired, has visited 29 different countries of the world, so as to be familiar with the dairy trade.