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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4219, 28 September 1874, Page 3

The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the adulteration of food has been issued. It concludes as follows :—■ " Your Committee believe it will afford some consolation to the public to know that iu the matter of adulteration they are cheated rather than poisoned. Witnesses of the highest standing concur in stating that, in the numerous articles of food and drink which they have analysed, they havo found scarcely anything absolutely injurious to health, and that if deleterious substances are occasionally employed for the purposes of adulteration they are used in such minute quantities as to bo comparatively harmless. Your Committee believe that it is the intention of Parliament that consumers should be protected from frauds, and that thoy should be enabled to procure the articles they ask for and require. But your Committee do not consider that Parliament deßires needlessly to hamper or fetter trade, still less to interfere between the buyer and the seller with the view of regulating prices, or attempting to assist the consumer in ascertaining tho real money value of any marketable commodity."