[From Otago Daily Times ]

Otago Witness, Issue 2202, 14 May 1896, Page 3

[From Otago Daily Times ]

COLONIAL MEAT IN ENGLAND. -- On March 18 the House of Commons, by a vote of 224 to 98, passed the second reading of tha . Agricultural Produce (Marks) Bill, the object of which is to insure the marking of certain articles of agricultural produce imported into the United Kingdom. The articles are meat and ' cheese. We are in possession of a copy of the Bill, and section 4 may be quoted:—" Every person ■who, either by himself or herself, or by his or her agent, servant, or other person employed for that purpose, sells or exposes for sale, or who hawks or offers for sale any foreign or colonial meat, shall cause to be attached to

each carcass or piece of such foreign meat a label or mark containing, in printed capital letters, the words * Foreign meat ' or ' Colonial meat,' in such manner as to be clearly visible to the purchaser, and any person not complying with this requisition shall be guilty of an offence under this Act." Foreign meat is defined as meat imported from any r place beyond the ' limits of Great Britain and Ireland, and there is no definition of colonial meat, but this may be an accidental omission that would be attended to in Committee; Section 5 requires every vendor of foreign and colonial meat to affix the words " Dealer in foreign and colonial meat " upon his shop ; section 11 extends the main ' provision 'of the Bill to cheese ; and there are a number of provisions in regard to registration and inspection. Assuming for the moment that the Home producer would be benefited by the passing of the Bill, is there anything in the proposal that the colonies can reasonably object to ? It seems to us that this question must be answered & tha negative. If &c Bill becomes

law. and is rigorously administered, it is quite possible that the demand for colonial meat will temporarily decrease, because unscrupulous butchers will no longer be able to make dishonest profits by selling colonial meat as English at the English price. But that the falling-pff would be only temporary there . can be little doubt, and the colonial exporter must gain in the long run by a system o£ straightforward sale. "We entertain no fears of a finally prejudicial result. The dishonesty that is now extensively practised benefits the cunning butcher, not the colonial exporter, and if some of these butchers ceased to buy colonial meat on account of the passing of the Bill, the loss would not be a very serious one. Many persons whose opinions are worthy of respect think it is a great pity that some such measure was not passed at the inception of the trade in frozen meat, and we quite agree with them. The senseless prejudice against frozen meat merely because it has been frozen | will die oxit in time, and meanwhile it is far better that people should know what they are buying and get what they want than that the prejudice should be fostered by the knowledge that methods of imposture are often resorted to. Without going so far as to say that v the colonies should urge the Imperial Parliament to legislate at the present time, we hold that if this Bill is calculated to do justice to the Home producer, and if the provisions are likely to prove workable, the colonies have no call or right to object. But the conditions just mentioned must not be taken for granted. Will the Bill benefit the Home producer? "Will the provisions prove workable ? It will be worth while to note the reception of the proposals by the House of Commons and The Times newspaper. The House, as we have seen, assented to the principle by a very large majority and the discussion certainly showed that there waa a demand for some legislation of the kind. Mr 'Ritchie, President of the Board of Trade, on behalf of the Government, agreed to vote for the second reading of the Bill, though "he was bound to say that he thought its provisions were not of a workable description. The practical difficulties in connection with the marking of meat were extremely great, and he doubted very much whether it would be possible to overcome them." Mr Bryob, a member of ' the late Cabinet, opposed the Bill on ' what .seems to us the somewhat artificial ground - that it was of a Protectionist character, adding an expression of opinion that the result would be directly opposite to that which the agricultural members desired. But more than 50 members of the Liberal party voted against Mr Bhtob. The Times, on the other hand, tells the farmers and their friends that they are on the wrong tack in looking to this kind of legislation for a relief from the depression. " They must fiud salvation in their own efforts or not at all. If their .beef and mutton are superior, yet cannot obtain superior prices owing to confusion with foreign produce, let them combine to put it on the market ia conditions about which there can be' no mistake. Lord Wmtohilsea. shows them the way in his co-operative scheme. Growers of English beef, if confident in the superiority of the article, ought to go behind the middleman and organise their own distributing machinery." -This is all very well, but The Times doeis not; clearly stwsr wlyf i* regards

the principle o£ the Bill as bad. No doubt it is on stronger ground in pointing out the difficulties in the way of effective legislation. "It is hardly maintained by any one that the clause relating to the marking of every joint sold is workable." English people hate armies of inspectors, and The Times tells the consumer that he would pay more in increased rates if the Bill became law than he would save on his butcher's bill. It is possible that, as The Times urges, the Home producer suffers no great loss after all, and, of course, the Imperial Parliament must decide the matter. But the majority of March 18 appears to show that the movement has a likelihood of success, and, if it does succeed, we shall be glad. At the same time we recegnise the practical difficulties of the situation, and in expressing a wish for the Buccess of the movement we do not imply an opinion that complete success would follow the passing of Mr Mildmay's Bill. The great desideratum is that by some means or other the meat trade in England should be placed upon an honest and satisfactory basis.