BORAX IN BUTTER.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 90, 15 April 1908, Page 5

BORAX IN BUTTER.

BEITISH PROHIBITION

RUMORED

WHAT WILL BECOME OF OUR

SURPLUS?

[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]

WELLINGTON, April 15

Here is a bomb-shell for dairy farmers : The British are talking about prohibiting the sale of butter containing preservatives. New Zealand sends to Britain every year over a million and a half pounds' worth of butter, "containing 160,000 pounds weight of a preservative—to wit, boracic acid. It is said by some that New Zealand butter cannot reach the British consumers in good condition two months old if it has to be without a preservative, and consequently if. the New Zealand factories are compelled to leave out the usual quarterpound of boracic acid from every box of butter shipped, a rather gloomy situation arises.

What are we to do with our million and a half pounds' worth of first-grade butter? Obviously the local markets will be more kindly treated by the various factories than they have been in the past, and there is a very hungry public waiting to give cheap butter a welcome; but the New Zealanders cannot make much of an» impression upon three quarters of a million boxes of butter, after eating our usual local supplies.

On .the whole, the outlook is ugly. Possibly the Britishers have every right to refuse to eat borax on every slice of bread-and-butter, and, indeed, it is said to be none too wholesome an article for sensitive "innards"; but it is contended^ on the contrary', that half a pound per hundredweight can hurt nobody but the microbes. Without the bprax the microbes, en joy a most refreshing sleep during the cold trip Home^ and open out at the other end, full of vigor, to multiply and impart their respective flavors to the butter. V ;

As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find a pound of butter-sold by the New ,Zealand grocers' to ,our own good citizens that does not contain its regulation half-pound of boracic acid per hundredweight. We have had no complaints locally as. to the effect, although after this statement has been" published I expect to hear boracic butter blamed for every bilious attack that happens.

It is considered almost inevitable that if the threatened regulation be enforced, New Zealand butter in London will have to take second place to the inferior butter from the Argentine and Siberia, which has a.'much shorter journey to endure. Unpreserved Australian butter has already been tried on the English market, and proved a dismal failurei Experiments with butter made .from pasteurised cream gi,Te better promise of success, and a Government report on recent trials hejre will shortly he issued. Pasteurisation and borax are simply means employed to , kill the - germs which the hundreds of little accidents which occur daily on the- best regulated farms enable to gain' access; but even with pasteurised butter there- is( apparently room for serious misgivings as to the condition in which it will open up when, two months old. "One other obvious result of the present cloud on the^ dairy industry will be seen in greater attention to cheesemaking. Cheese apparently needs s no preservative; it travels well to England, and it pays better than butter, so there may after «11 ~be no .need to kill off all the dairy herds as a result of the prohibition of borax. ,