§ GENERAL LAURIE (Pembroke and Haverfordwest)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to proceedings taken in the Marylebone Police Court on 15th March, when certain vendors of butter were summoned for selling butter containing 24, 23, and 23 per cent. of water respectively; and when the magistrates dismissed the summons on the ground pressed by the defendants' solicitor that it was no offence to sell butter containing an unlimited quantity of water, and that there was no obligation to expel all the water possible; whether he is aware that the Society of Public Analysts have adopted a standard of 16 per cent. of water in butter; and whether the Board of Agriculture have made regulations, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, determining the proportion of water permissible in genuine butter, or whether they propose to do so.
§ *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY, Preston)My attention has been called to this case. The magistrate founded his decision on the opinion expressed by the analyst that nothing had been added to the butter to give the amount of water found, and on the ground that under the Act of 1899 it is for the Board of Agriculture and not for the Society of Public Analysts to fix the standard. As soon as I received the Report of the Committee on the subject of a standard for milk I gave directions that a Committee should be appointed to fix a standard for butter, 43 and evidence is now being collected for that purpose.