§ DR. FARQUHARSON (Aberdeenshire, W.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, in the event of his deciding on the appointment of a Departmental Committee to inquire into the working of the Margarine and Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, he will include within the scope of the Inquiry the sufficiency or otherwise of the present law to check the fraudulent sale of foreign for home-fed meat?
§ * THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H. GARDNER,) Essex, Saffron WaldenI do not think that the two subjects to which my hon. Friend refers are of a sufficiently cognate character to render their consideration by the same Committee convenient, and I may remind my hon. Friend that a Select Committee of the other House was appointed last Session to consider the whole subject of the marking of imported agricultural and horticultural produce, and that we are in possession of the results of their inquiry so far as meat is concerned.
§ SIR W. WEDDERBURN (Banffshire)Arising out of the answer, may I ask whether the Department have not received from the north and north-east of Scotland many complaints and resolutions about the sale of foreign meat professing to be Scotch-grown?
§ MR. GARDNERYes, Sir; many resolutions have been received by the Board of Agriculture on that subject from all parts of the Kingdom.
§ MR. BUCHANAN (Aberdeenshire, E.)And, in the meantime, will the right hon. Gentleman not take any steps to satisfy the discontent now felt as to the inefficiency of the present law?
§ MR. GARDNERI have not said I am not prepared to take any steps; the matter is under the consideration of the Government.