Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4000 DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1914. PROTECTION OF BUTTER INTERESTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9740, 4 March 1914, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4000 DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1914. PROTECTION OF BUTTER INTERESTS.

Tme President of the British Board of Trade will, according to a cable, receive a deputation this week from those interested in the butter trade in the Old Country. It is desired to lay before the authorities the danger arising out of the unrestricted sale of various butter substitutes, and particularly margarine. The trade representatives of the various butter-producing colonies have interested themselves in the matter, for it is one that closely concerns all countries that, like New Zealand, have gone in very largely for dairying. The Hon. T. Mackenzie. New Zealand's High Commissioner, has taken a leading part in urging the claims of the butter producers upon the protection of the State, for he realises that the menace to a staple industry of this country is very real. In recent years the growth in the use of margarine in England and other European countries has been very marked. This has been due to two causes—the high price of butter on the one hand, and the improved quality of the margarine on the other. Skilful advertising and clever marketing methods have done much to remove the old prejudice! against the substitute. All over Eng-j land shops have been opened which specialise in margarine, neatly wrapped and indistinguishable in appearance from the best butter. The idea of cheapness, which disqualified it with many people, is overcome by a simple artifice. The margarine is ticketed at the same price as butter, but it is also j announced that "double overweight" is given; that is, the'purchaser gets' two pounds of the article for the price of one pound of butter, and at the same time may keep up the self-de-lusion that a cheap and therefore inferior article is being purchased. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the sale of margarine has! increased by leaps and bounds, and! that the principal manufacturing company have made phenomenal profits. ( To legitimate competition butter pro-' ducers can have no real objection, but they certainly have grounds for com-

plaint against many of the devices adopted by the margarine dealer. They have a right to demand that the consumer who wants butter, and is prepared to pay for it, gets a pure, unadulterated article, and that any of the artificial compounds shall not be substituted. In Britain there is no check upon the trade. Margarine may be coloured to the exact appearance of butter, and this is everywhere done, while the more the substitute can be made to look like the real thing, the better satisfied the dealers are. It is this practice, as well as the incorporation of margarine with butter, that the legitimate traders very rightly object to. They claim that the only fair policy is to require each product to stand upon its own merits, to be sold for what it is without any deception of the purchaser. Other countries have already taken steps to ensure that there shall be no substitution. In both France and Denmark the colouring of margarine is strictly prohibited. In the former country the manufacturers and dealers must display large signs, making the nature of their business clear. Belgium has similar laws, and most of the other countries of Europe have regulations prohibiting the sale of margarine in the same shop where butter is stored or sold. Britain alone fails to afford the dairying industry the protection it is rightly entitled to, and it is in the hope that the pure food law there will be brought into line that an influential deputation will wait upon the Board of Trade this week. The answer they will receive will be of more than passing interest to the industry in New Zealand, since the growth of the margarine trade is rapidly becoming something of a challenge to its supremacy.