MEAT MARKING A LA MILDMAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1264, 21 May 1896, Page 6

MEAT MARKING A LA MILDMAY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

London, April 7. Air Mildmay’s Agricultural Produce Bill is meeting .with a vast amount of wholesome criticism, and the facts and opinions drawn out by the übiquitous pressman from persons interested in the meat and cheese trades may very possibly help to make this ludicrous measure’s cotliu. I have already stated my opinion that so far from benefiting tlm British producers, it is more likely to help their colonial competitors. This view is shared by many competent judges and is set forth in the course of an article in the 7 )<tily News, the result of a trip round Smith field by one of the staff. I venture to quote a portion : Of course it is done to help the British farmer, and the measure proposed might have some effect this way if it could show’ that between the homefed and the foreign there is a difference in quality at least commensurate with the diflerence in price. Instead of doing this, what it will be far more likely to make clear is the fact that while there is a very large difference in price, there is often practically no difference at all in quality. “I have had the foreign meat at my table for years,” said a family man, who has been for many years connected with Sinithfield, “ and though I think

that sometimes it is notquitesonicecold, that doesn’t much matter. When we sit down to a leg of mutton there is not much left to get cold. I have always found it just as good as English.” Now, of course that may be sadly wanting in patriotism, but what Air Alildmay’s Alarks Bill will be certain to do, if it does anything at all, will lie to enable people to distinguish unmistakably between tho two classes of meat, and if it really is true that they are so nearly alike, to tempt them to just this unpatriotic preference for 4LI a pound instead of 9J or 101. It may show a great many people that they have really been oating foreign meat without being poisoned, and the discovery may incline them to continue to do so at a great reduction in price, and their example will be sure to be followed by others. The chances are that tho new move may tend rather to boom colonial and American meat. It will tend to promote its consumption, and for a short time may not improbably somewhat enhance its price, and possibly bring down the market value of the home-fel article. But if the demand increases, of course supplies will increase too, and prices will tend down again, and home-fed meat will have to follow, and perhaps very rapidly when the distinction is clear and the matter is better understood. That is how it seems likely the British farmer is going to be helped As to cheese, the marking seems quite ridiculously useless and unnecessary, and merchants and dealers appear to regard it as quite unlikely to affect them in any way. “ If a person buys a cheese,” said one, “ be won’t bother about marks ; lie will have the taster stuck >nto it, and will eat a bit of it. If lie likes the 1] ivour of it V"U don’t suppose lie’,| refuse to take it because it whs made in Canada or New Zealand,”