MARGARINE AND BUTTER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 20 December 1913, Page 10

MARGARINE AND BUTTER.

The movement in support of legislation to protect the consumer against the illicit sale of margarine as a substitute for butter received unanimous endorsement recently at a conference in London at which delegates of the principal agricultural and dairying organisations of the United Kingdom and of Australia and New Zealand, and also the official representatives .of the Federal Governments of Australia, the Dominion Government of New Zealand, and the State Governments of New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, and Tasmania were present. The discussion took place in private, but it is understood that the conference was unanimously of opinion that legislation was necessary to prevent the sale of margarine under conditions calculated to mislead the public into the belief that it is a kind of butter. Resolutions upon which it is proposed to found legislation having this object in view were agreed to, and authority was given for submitting them to the Government in due course by a deputation from the conference. It was, however, .decided that the terms of the resolutions should not be disclosed until they had been laid before the Minister of Agriculture. Enquiries made by. a representative of the Morning Post among experts in the'butter trade elicited the general opinion that the'first-class grades of English, Danish, New Zealand, and Australian butter have-nothing to fear ,from the competition;of margarine as a butter substitute. , One authority 'said: • .'.■ ■•■ •: '■.■.•■■ • ■■ • '■:■ ■■ .:■

"Danish and New Zealand butters ate uniformly of such high graoV that they have a market of their own altogether above and beyond anything that the margarine manufacturers can supply, and the same thing is true of the best qualities of English and Aus-

tralian butter. It is the cheaper grades of English and Australian butter that suffer in the competition of margarine. The section of the public —and it is by far the biggest section —which used to buy the cheaper grades of butter has found out that firstclass margarine is more palatable and much cheaper than second or third-class butter, and equally wholesome, if not more so. And they are buying margarine in increasing quantities every year, as is shown by our steadily growr ing imports. Three years ago margarine was coming into this country from abroad at the rate of 4000 tons a month, and this year it is 6000 tons. I do not know what the home manufacture amounts to, but I believe it is progressing at an even greater rate than the imports, and it seems to be pretty certain that the English, Irish, or Scotish butter producer who seeks to market anything but the highestclass butter will find his product ousted by the better qualities of margarine." Another authority drew attention to the following passage in a report furnished to the Government of Victoria by the State's representative in England, which, he said, accurately represented the considered opinion of the majority of the London butter trade, at least as far as imports from Australia were concerned.

"I would reiterate that the demand for margarine in this country is exceedingly great, that there is every prospect of an enormous increase, and that every effort should be made by our exporters to send to this country only butter of the highest class. This, I am sure, will beX more remunerative to them as the demand for secondary butters must continue to diminish in consequence of the cheap price of margarine, and in this connection you may be disposed to consider the grading of cream in the State. You may. take it that these views represent the general consensus of opinon in trade circles and among those who are conversant with the butter trade here."