Sessional_Paper_1911 — Page 47

43

In answer to Mr. Barham

"4729. What would you suggest should be a penalty for a wilfully false an robbing the child of its natural sustenance. 14 parts of water instead of with 2, which concentration.

should be the remedy for that?-That there misleading label or direction, which is really It is simply cruel to go and dilute a milk with would be sufficient to bring it to its orignal

4730. But then you tell us that with the two it would be so thick that the child could not take it ?—Then he should not be fed on it; it is unfit for children.

4733. Then it will get over the difficulty, from your point of view, if that tin of condensed milk was sold without a label and the buyer would use his judgment as to how he diluted it ?--I am afraid that is worse; you are then relying on the ignorance of the people.

4734. I am thinking of the remedy? I am afraid that remedy is worse than the disease alucst. If you have got a label on, that label should indicate that the milk is condensed to one-third, say. I would like to make the manufacturer say, 'I direct it to be diluted with fourteen parts of water, but it will make it worthless for the child'. I cannot make him do that; but he ought to say how much it has been concentrated in the directions for dilution."

In answer to Mr. Murphy:-

"4802. That is what I thought. I was asking for information, and I was afraid that the power given under the Act would not help us very much ?-Under the main Act there is a clause which has never been worked, at least I have never heard of any proceed- ings under it. In the main Act there is a clause saying a person who shall wilfully mislabel a thing shall be liable. I have never heard of any proceedings at all under that, and my authorities have never seen their way to take any such prosecution. If I may be allowed to digress a moment from the question of mikk, I may say that there is proprietary food sold under the name of somebody's Beef Peptonoids, which is on the label said to contain 80 per cent. of the nitrogenous constituents of beef, wheat, and milk. As a matter of fact, it contains 52 per cent, of milk sugar, and nitrogenous matter equal to only 20 per cent, of proteids instead of 80 per cent. My authorities do not see their way to proceed on it, because the retail vendor of the article is clearly an innocent party, and the pro- prietor, the manufacturer, lives in London, and we cannot initiate a prosecution in London. Here is this great scandal going on of a deliberate misrepresentation, saying that the stuff contains 80 per cent. of nutritive matter, when it contains only 20 per cent.; and this is only representative of a great many other instances of these special foods."

Dr. Hill in answer to Mr. Cowan :—

IX.

"129. I think you stated condensed milk was generally male from skinnel milk ?—It is most frequently made from skimmed milk; it is deficient in fat.

130. Would you not think that it should be made from full milk ?-Certainly; and where it is not it should be very distinctly labelled to that effect, instead of which they label it in obscure letters that it is made with skimmed milk, and they frequently get the edge of the label over the statement so that the people are not even aware of the intiination."

X.

Sir C. A. Cameron in answer to Dr. Voelcker:--

"2520. Do you think it should be made obligatory to declare the amount of water that it is necessary to add to a condensed milk in order to bring it up to the standard ?- Undoubtedly.

2521. It should not be sold without some statement of that kind ?-We should be told of what would mean the same thing-we should be told what quantity of milk it cor- responds to that it corresponds to eight times or six times, whatever it may be, of milk.

2522. And that should be binding?-I think so. One should know that it would make a gallon of milk or two gallous of milk, or whatever the quantity would be."