COLONIAL PRODUCE IN LONDON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1212, 24 May 1895, Page 7

COLONIAL PRODUCE IN LONDON.

London, March 29. Some very startling statements were made this week before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Food Products Adulteration, by Mr James Hudson, of the well-known retail butter and cheese firm, Hudson Bros., of London. Mr Hudson suggested that the local inspectors whose business it is to detect shopkeepers when selling margarine or margarine mixture for pure butter were open to bribery. His evidence, as reported in the newspapers, is as follows : “Mr Hudson concluded with a statement, which created some sensation, to the effect that the inspectors were known in almost every locality, and when one of them asked for a pound of tenpenny butter theshopkeeper either gave him sixteenpenny butter, or else put half a sovereign in the scale. : “Mr Kearley.—Do you suggest the inspectors are open to bribery 1 — Witness. —Undoubtedly. You are speaking from experience ? —Yes. “You mean they are open to be ‘ squai ed 7 ?—Certainly. “ Could we have evidence to prove that d—Yes ; from the Butter Associ ciation, and names can be given.” In another part of his evidence he alleged, what your correspondent lias often stated, viz., that the low price of New Zealand and Australian butter largely interfered with the sale of mai*garine. Mr John Lovell, of Messrs Lovell and Christmas, made very similar statements to Mr Hudson, regarding the squaring of the local inspectors. He advocated travelling inspectors. The quantity of water •allowable in butter, Mr Lovell said, should not exceed 17 per cent. The best French contained only 13. Begarding Australian and New Zealand butter, he had analysed many of them, but never found them adulterated. Speaking as to the effect of the competition of colonial butter upon the English article, be said the present prices were so low as, in his opinion, would prohibit‘the colonists from continuing the trade. The cargo ot cheese which arrived in the Arcadia from Australia has turned oil fc in -very good condition. The chambers were very dry and the temperature was regular and suitable, viz., about 50deg F. The butter was not so regular, the temperature ranging from 32Jeg to 42deg F. when examined in the hold. Though these are not such as to injure the butter, still it shows that the engineers are by no means perfect in their methods The butter is principally packed solid, and if a large mass of it is thus excluded from the action of the cold a>r there is sure to be differences in the temperatures.

The p rieo of Danish butter lias fallen. The Copenhagen committee have fixed the prices of best quality at 84s to 935, and second qualities at 76s to 82s. This- has been forced upon the Danes by the fall in values of colonial, and it is very probable that a further reduction in Danish will soon follow, as the spring calving is causing an increase of butter. From Holland, where they for years have followed the method of very early calving, large quantities are coming forward, and therefore there is every prospect of lower prices in the near future. When the Valetta arrives with her 32,000 boxes, she will about finish off the season by causing a big drop in prices. The demand for colonial butter has been better for the last few days, owing to the fall of last week, which secured the attention of buyeis,' as there was much money to be made out of it. The profits of the retailer thi3 year must have been enormous. In some districts they are making now quite fourpence a pound profit. .There can be no doubt that the public have not in any fair degree

received the benefit they should have done from the low prices which have prevailed all through the season. The cold storage accommodation of London is abouc to be increased by space for 80,000 sheep, or a similar capacity of butter, by the erection of the Hibernia Wharf Stores, which aie situated close to Londou-bridge, and in Montagu-close, which is a continuation of Tooley street. A peculiarity of interest is the new insulating material, which is none other than coffee husks. This is a silica fibrous matter, unburnable and 10 per cent, better non-con-ductor than charcoal, while the price is very much cheaper. The process is the Linde dry air, which is now pretty well known and therefore needs no exalanation.

The live cattle trade is exciting considerable interest in shipping circles, and several shipowners who have not yet made experiments in this direction have been enquiring into the possibilities of making the business pay. The result of these inquiries has not generally been encouraging, and there does not really seem any chance of the trade been opened up on a large scale unless the rates of freights are considerably increased. A member of a large Australian shipping firm tells me that he has been looking carefully into the matter, with the intention of chartering an American cattle steamer if he found there was a reasonable prospect cf making the venture pay. On working the matter out he found that if he chartered a steamer which would carry 900 cattle on three decks at the present freight of £6 per beast the result would be a loss of about £2OOO per voyage. His working showed that the freight for the cattle in the ’tween decks would be equal to about only 15s per ton of cubic measurement—a rate to which the steamship-owner has not quite descended yet in spite of depression and competition.—London correspondent A ustralasian.