THE PURE FOOD CONGRESS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13563, 26 October 1909, Page 6

THE PURE FOOD CONGRESS.

Some of the decisions of the great Pure Food Congress, now sitting in Paris, as cabled during the past week, are calculated to shake public confidence in the value of the gathering. Aβ •»© explained some days ago, the Congress is one of a series, promoted by the White Cross Society of Geneve, to wage war against the adulteration of human foocs and beverages, en admirable object for the best efforts of the scientists who were invited to attend. It is disappointing, therefore, to note that in some directions they seem to be more intent on relaxing the present restrictions on adulteration then on tightening them. It is difficult to understand, for instance, why the Congress should deliberately decide that butter might contain 18 per cent, of water instead of 16 per cent., the proportion decided upon at the Geneva Congress and adopted at Home as the legal limit of moisture in butter. The admixture of an additional 2 per cent, of water with butter would not, of course, make it unwholesome, but there is a widespread and well-grounded conviction among consumers that if they pay butter prices for 16 per cent, of water ttey have done quit* enough for the benefit of the dairy industry, and that to ask them to buy 18 per cent, of water at a shilling per lb may be only a step towards making 20, or even 25, per cent, the legal limit for moisture. Aβ a matter of fact, the allowance of Iβ , per cent. Ie ample, though it has taken some time, , and no little trouble, to establish that standard in New Zealand. Even last season, in epite of the Government regulations and the system of inspection and testing, the reputation of Xew Zealand butter suffered in London through the excessive moisture in some brands, * fact which Australian exporters are trying to turn to their own advantage. The decision of the Congress does aot carry any legal weight, either ia re-

gard to this question of moisture or the permissibility of using boron as a preservative, a matter on which doctors will no doubt disagree with the views of the delegates. Neither does the sanction it has extended to the presence in French wines of a certain percentage of sulphuric ecid necessarily mean that wine So adulterated will be permitted to enter or be sold in countries where the stomachs of the public receive .some official protection. Some French wines, as is well known, are quite independent of vineyards or even gooseberry and currant bushes. They arc what scientists would term synthetic wines, built up in the laboratory and composed in. 6ome instances of a pleasant mixture of alcohol, water, logwood extract (for colour), and soino product of coal tar (for odour). The Pure Food Congress is capable of doing much good, but if many of its decisions are on the lines of those referred to it may do a great deal more harm. The adulterator needs suppression, not encouragement.