SUPPLY.—REPORT. (Hansard, 31 July 1882)

§ MR. DILLWYN
said, he was not in the House when this Vote came on in Committee, otherwise he should have opposed it. He was always ready to object to it on principle, as having reference to one of the offices which had really become obsolete. There were no real duties attaching to the office; and he thought that if they wanted an extra or a special Minister they should have one, giving him a proper name instead of that which was a mere cloak for a sinecure office. The public ought to know that there were duties to be performed, and they ought to have some indication as to what those duties were. As he (Mr. Dillwyn) was in the House, he felt it his duty to express his objection to the Vote, his hostility to it remaining undiminished. It was well understood why he objected to the Vote. It was not because he in the slightest degree objected to the person who held the office, but because there were no duties to be performed in it. He begged to move the rejection of the Vote.

§ MR. T. C. BARING
said, he had nothing to say personally against the worthy Nobleman who now occupied the office of Lord Privy Seal. He was Lord Lieutenant of the county with which he (Mr. Baring) was connected, and performed his duties well; but he (Mr. Baring) had always opposed the Vote— in a former Parliament as well as in this. They were very much in want of another Cabinet Minister. The House had already passed a Vote recommending that there should be a Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, and if they did not desire to increase the number of Cabinet Ministers, they could easily do what was wanted by abolishing the office of Lord Privy Seal. There was hardly a Member of the Cabinet who was not at this moment double-shotted—everybody seemed to be doing somebody else's work besides his own—and if, in the present condition of affairs at home and abroad, they found no difficulty in getting on with so few Cabinet Minis- 329 ters, it was a proof that they could do without the office of Lord Privy Seal for the future.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
said, he would support the proposal of the hon. Member (Mr. Dillwyn), not so much because he objected to the office of Lord Privy Seal as because he thought that there should be a Minister for Scotland. Scotch Affairs were singularly neglected in that House. They found when they were discussing Scotch Fishery Boards that the English Ministers in the House knew nothing at all about them. He (Colonel Alexander) was, therefore, in favour of doing away with the sinecure office of Lord Privy Seal.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, he begged to call the attention of the President of the Local Government Board to an exceedingly important question—namely, the adulteration of butter. There was a discussion on the subject of adulteration the other night, and it was decided that in cases where coffee was mixed with other ingredients the fact of the mixture should be stated on the labels outside the packages. They knew that publicans had been prosecuted for selling gin containing more than a certain por-portion of water—that was to say, gin below a certain proof strength—and he did not see why the Local Government Board should not take care that the consumers of that which purported to be butter were protected in the same way as the consumers of coffee. The adulteration of butter cost the public an enormous deal more than the adulteration of coffee, and did a great deal of injury to the producers. It was of the utmost importance to the agriculturists of the country that that which was not butter at all should be allowed to compete with butter. It had been urged that the difficulty was that in cases of adulteration the retailer or small dealer had no means of knowing what the substance he sold as butter was composed of, having no opportunity of testing its component parts. But that was no argument, because the re- 330 tailer should get a guarantee from the wholesale man; and if the article turned out to be different to what it had been represented to be, the wholesale man could be proceeded against; and he, if the adulteration had not been of his doing, would be able to fall back on the person who supplied the article in the first instance. It would be the easiest thing in the world for the retailer to protect himself. At the same time, the consumer had no protection, as he was obliged to go to the public analyst before he could get any redress. The persons who bought the articles were not likely to have competent examiners, and to know what it was as well as those persons who were continually dealing in it, and knew its nature and quality. He would ask the Government to try to protect the consumer and the English people from foreign adulterations, for the great bulk of that stuff sold as butter in England was made in foreign countries, and foreigners got the benefit at the expense of the English consumers. He was very much disposed to move the reduction of the Vote, as he believed the officers of the Local Government Board did not do their duty in connection with this important question.

§ MR. DODSON
said, he had an explanation to give the hon. Member which he would, at all events, admit was conclusive, if not satisfactory; and it was that the Local Government Board had neither duties nor power in regard to this matter. The question was entirely under the general law of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, and unless that law were altered, the Local Government Board had no power in the matter.