NEW ZEALAND HONEY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 2 April 1927, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND HONEY.

POPULAR IN GERMANY. Bee lcultur and bee culture went to law •at Freiburg, in Brunswick, Germany, early this year as the result of the German Union of Beekeepers, Neumunster, becoming piqued at the methods adopted by a Freiburg merchant, Peui \Vatezel, to push tlie sale of New Zealand honey. The judgment of the County Court at Freiburg, which was received recently by Air. John Rentoul, managing director of the New Zealand Co-operative Honey Producers’ Association, discloses two interesting comparisons with Germany—that New Zealand’s legal methods are much the same, and its honey a great deal better.

The cause of the trouble was a series of advertisements published by Air. Waetzel to the effect that (I) New Zealand honey is the best bee honey and the best flower honey in the world; (2) centrifugal honey (the German type) contains in some cases up to 70 per cent, of cane sugar, and is therefore inferior value; (3) German honey, which is mixed with sugar, is heated up again and suffers in value owing to overheating; (4) only honey with a soft, thick, creamy consistency, as shown by New Zealand honey, and not the viscid honey (German), like syrup, is the genuine mature flower honey; and New Zealand honey is the most valuable on the world market; (5) New Zealand honey is shipped under official supervision only. It was for an injunction that the peeved German producers moved. There is a home-like appearance in the mass of documents that accumulated between the first indignation meeting of the incensed beekeepers and the final judgment of the chamber of commercial cases of the County Court at Freiburg. After a thorough examination of “expert witnesses” and “exhibits,” the three judges decided that the claims for New Zealand honey had been partly established.

The judgment is a tribute to New Zealand lionev and an unsolicited testimonial to Mr. Waetzel as a live business man. Tlie advertisements, the judgment says, have been cleverly worded. The Court thought it was not considerate of Air. Waetzel to startle the women of Brunswick with the information that the German centrifugal honey, having so much cane sugar, gave rise to rheumatism and gout. But as to calling New Zealand honey the “best” honey, that was a matter of taste or of custom.

As in British Courts, the Germans apparently have their “authorities,” for the judges indicate that one has only to yefer to Rosenthal VW G. para. 3, judgment 18, to find that the only prohibition of tlie word “best” is in application to goods obviously of inferior value. “New Zealand honey, however, cannot he regarded as being honey of inferior value,” the judges add. “According to one analysis, it is absolutely pure bee honey of the best character.”

Except in securing an order preventing Air. Waetzel from warning the wise folk who read newspaper advertisements that, like the alcohol of America, the honey of Germany is of the wood genus, the German Union of Beekeepers lost their case.