BLENDED BUTTER BILL

Southland Times, Issue 21072, 2 May 1930, Page 7

BLENDED BUTTER BILL

NO FACILITIES FOR DISCUSSION

(United Press Assn.—By Telegraph—Copyright.)

London, April 30.

It was stated at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society that the Government would not afford facilities for a discussion of the Blended Butter Bill. It. is understood that the Minister of Agriculture’s expert .advisers say it would be impossible to identify by a chemical analysis butter as home-produced or foreign.

In the House of Commons recently Mr Oswald Lewis’s Blended Butter Bill was read a first time. The principal provision is the compulsory use of the word “blended” on the wrapper. Mr Lewis stated that last year 80,000 tons of butter were blended in Britain, of which 60,000 to'ns consisted of inferior butter from Poland, Latvia, Siberia, and other foreign countries, and 16,000 tons were of good quality from Australia and New Zealand. The addresses on the wrappers made people think that they were buying local butter. Earlier in the day the Conservative Parliamentary Agricultural Committee received a deputation representing Australian, New Zealand, Irish Free State, and South African butter producers, protesting against the fraudulent sale of blended butter from foreign countries. The meeting adopted a resolution urging the Minister of Agriculture to institute an inquiry under the Merchandise Marks Act.