FROZEN MUTTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6887, 24 June 1890, Page 2

FROZEN MUTTON.

• Our London correspondent, under date May 2, write. :— A measure having much the same object as the Merchandise Marks Act of 1887 is the Foreign and Colonial Meat Bill now before the House of Commons. This Bill merely requires that persons selling foreign or Colonial meat shall declare its character, and not try to palm it off as English meat at English, prices. No doubt many of the old school of Freetraders will see in this measure an attempt at Protection, and oppose it as such. And it is emphatically Protection ; but it is an attempt to protect the consumer against fraud, not to protect the producer against fair and open competition. If foreign meat is as good as, and cheaper than English, the British public will aoon discover the f act and eagerly buy it. Even now foreign meat, and especially the better qualities of New, Zealand mutton, sells readily enough, but in nine cases out of ten the consumer buys it for the Homegrown article and pays for it as such. Burglars and pickpockets are sent to prison, and yet the butcher who practises thiß kind of fraud is allowed to prosper and grow fat.