FOOD INSPECTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 117, 18 April 1939, Page 2

FOOD INSPECTION.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —‘"’Five Crown Pippin’s” material interests evidently come under Government regulations, requiring inspection. Quite right, too; any move under the Labour regime or any prior Government to prevent the exploitation of the public from food or fruit not suitable for human consumption should be appreciated. Meat and many items of food came under legislation long before Labour’s advent. Did folks squeal then? Yes. the favoured few whose profits were curtailed in the terests of public health. The remarks re pips, wooden or otherwise, are more suitable for the German Press, where Gormans even extract oil from fruit pips. Re another item, butter, the amount of moisture, especially for local eonsump'ion, in very many cases exceeded 25 per cent., while the primest for export purposes was restricted to 16 per cent.. However, the Government stepped in and brought in legislation making local 16 nor cent., and that was not a Labour Government. It was said at the time that the excessive moisture in local butter was added to increase its sproadnbility, because the workers were so tired. Now the size of some kinds of fish (flat), taken even from the sea is under regulation (4-ineh mesh, I believe). and most of us look forward to the dav when by regulations even the price of same will be fixed. If it is the duty of saying just what the wages shall be. surely it should apply also to the price labour shall pay. Milk, also, has to he up to the mark, and had to these many years, so apparently Labour did not introduce that safeguard, but increased the benefit, to possibly thousands of children. Surely that- milk comes under rigid inspection. So in all things, it is not merely a question of how many oversized pips or otherwise an orange may contain, lint the conditions generally. One condition any observant Palmerstoninn who is out earlv, especially on a breezv morning, notices, is the pocket. editions of dust and dirt storms eddving around shop entrances. Not all dust, cither, on many occasions. This dirt and dust nuisance, now the hedges are removed, will become an increasing source of annoyance to most shopkeepers, according _to the wind. Intensive cultivation will have a tendency to increase their worries, more than the inspection by inspectors. Even now a bv-law requests the sweeping of paths before 9 a.m. before most folks are moving. On spell mornings one wonders if the services of the sfreet sweepers have been dispensed with, for undoubtedly they assist in preventing disease. AYo fortunately see the two toilers with the dray doing their part, hut the methods' of sweeping the aforementioned shop entrances back into the gutter after the latter have been done seems incorrect, because on windy days the dust hops back. Tf part of the fruit inspoctor’s duties is to prevent those conditions arising then all credit to what is apparently in the mind of one, the “daddy” inspector.—T am e+e., CLEAN SWEEP.