§ 22. Mr. CAUTLEYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Control Department whether, having regard to the scarcity of cane sugar and the difficulty of the poor in obtaining even a limited quantity of it, and considering that glucose is a variety of sugar which from a physiological point of view is as nutritious and as easily digested as cane sugar, that glucose can be prepared in large quantities and cheaply by the several factories already making it in this coun- 1108 try or their extensions, and that the sole objection to it as a sweetening agent is that it is not sweet enough, but this can easily be overcome by the addition of a suitable quantity of saccharine, he will encourage or undertake the manufacture of glucose and the addition of saccharine thereto as a means of providing for the people a nutritious sugar, cheap, and in no respect injurious, and thereby solving the sugar difficulty?
Captain BATHURSTAs the raw materials from which glucose is made would have to be imported, and would occupy more tonnage than an equivalent amount of sugar, there would not appear to be any advantage in offering special encouragement for the manufacture of this article. Moreover, as matters now stand, it is probably of greater importance to adjust more accurately the distribution of sugar than to increase its quantity or the quantity of possible substitutes. The possibility and desirability of extending the use of saccharine for flavouring purposes will be considered, but I should point out that saccharine has no food value.