entirely disappeared. A close connexion had been shown to exist between the extent of adulteration and the number of articles submitted for analysis under the acts, the proportion of adulterated samples being found to diminish as the number of samples taken relatively to the population increased. Thus, in 1890, in Somersetshire one sample had been analysed for every 379 persons, the percentage of adulterated samples in those taken for analysis being as low as 3·6; in Gloucestershire one to 770 persons with 6·2 of adulteration; in Bedfordshire one to 821 with 7·1; in Derbyshire one to 3164 with 17·1%, and in Oxford one sample to 14,963 inhabitants with no less than 41·7% of adulterated samples. The number of samples of articles annually submitted to analysis, according to the returns obtained by the Local Government Board, steadily increased from the commencement onward. Whereas in 1877, 14,706 samples, and in 1883, 19,648 samples were analysed, in 1904–1905 the number was no less than 84,678, or an average of one sample to 384 inhabitants for the whole country. In the five years 1877–1881 the proportion found adulterated was 16·2%; in the following five years ending with 1886, the percentage was 13·9; in the five years ending 1891, the percentage was 11·7; and in the year 1904 the percentage was only 8·5. The select committee found that wide local differences in the administration of the acts existed, and that in many parts of the country the local authorities had failed to exercise their powers. In one metropolitan district, eight members of the local authority had been convicted of offences under the acts, upon evidence obtained by their own inspector. The result was that the duties of the inspector of the acts were afterwards controlled by a committee of that local authority, who decided the cases in which prosecutions should be undertaken, and the administration of the acts was “little better than a farce.” No power existed to compel local authorities to carry out the acts. The committee came to the conclusion that in many cases the responsibility for the adulteration of articles of food did not rest with the retailer but with the wholesale dealer or manufacturer; that the law punished petty offences and left great ones untouched; that it fined a small retailer and left the wholesale offender scot free. As regards warranty, they thought that the precedent created by the Margarine Act should be followed generally, and that invoices and equivalent documents should have the force of warranties. They found that a considerable proportion of the food imports were adulterated, out of 890 samples of butter taken by the customs in 1895 no less than 106 being impure, and they recommended that in addition to tea, which by section 30 of the act of 1875 was to be systematically analysed by the customs, prior to being passed for distribution, samples of all food imports should be taken and examined by the customs. The committee further found that the penalties imposed under the acts had for the most part been trifling and quite insufficient to serve as deterrents, the profits derived from the sale of adulterated articles being out of proportion great to the insignificant fines imposed, and they recommended that for the second offence the penalty of £5 should be the minimum one, and that in respect to third or subsequent offences imprisonment without the option of a fine might be inflicted. The important question of food standards was considered at great length. The absence of legal standards or definitions of articles of food had occasioned great difficulty in numerous cases, but as no authority was provided by the existing acts that might fix such standards, they recommended the formation of a scientific authority or court of reference composed of representatives of the laboratory of the Inland Revenue, of the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture, the General Medical Council, the Institute of Chemistry, the Pharmaceutical Society, of other scientific men and of the trading and manufacturing community, who should have the duty of fixing standards of quality and purity of food to be confirmed by a secretary of state.
The committee’s deliberations and recommendations resulted in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1899. This unfortunately was not a comprehensive act superseding the previous acts, but was an additional and amending one, so that at the present time four food acts run parallel and are together in force, rendering the subject from a legal point of view one of extreme complexity. In this act the growing influence of the Board of Agriculture and the desire to assist farmers and dairymen more decisively than previously are clearly Act of 1899.apparent. Section 1 empowers the customs to take samples of consignments of imported articles of food and enjoins them to communicate to the Board of Agriculture the names of the importers of adulterated goods, any article of food to be considered adulterated or impoverished if it has been mixed with any other substance (other than preservative or colouring matter, of such a nature and such a quantity as not to render the article injurious to health), or if any part of it has been abstracted to the detriment of the article. Margarine or cheese containing margarine has to be conspicuously marked as such; condensed, separated or skim milk has to be clearly labelled “machine-skimmed milk” or “skimmed milk,” as the case may be. The next sections give to the Local Government Board and the Board of Agriculture a roving commission to see that the acts are properly enforced throughout the kingdom so as to apply the acts more equally throughout the country than heretofore, and in default of local authorities carrying out their duties empower the government departments mentioned to execute and enforce the acts at the expense of the local authorities. The importance of a regular and conscientious control of the public food supply by the local authorities was thus for the first time, after forty years of experimental legislation, fully acknowledged. In recognition of the great difficulties experienced for many years by analysts in their endeavour to fix minimum percentages for the fat and other milk constituents, and their inability to do so without statutory powers, the Board of Agriculture is authorized by section 4 to make regulations “for determining what deficiency in any of the normal constituents of genuine milk, cream, butter or cheese, or what addition of extraneous matter or proportion of water” in any of these materials shall raise a presumption, until the contrary is proved, that these articles are not genuine. In pursuance of these powers the Board of Agriculture did in 1901 issue their milk regulations, adopting officially the minima agreed upon by public analysts, and in 1902 the sale of butter regulations, which fixed 16% as the maximum of water that might be contained in butter. It is important to note that the fact of a sample of milk falling short of the standard is not conclusive evidence of adulteration, but it justifies the institution of proceedings and casts the onus of proving that the sample is genuine upon the defendant. The Margarine Act of 1887 was extended to margarine cheese, the obligatory labelling of margarine packages was more precisely regulated, margarine manufacturers and dealers in that article were compelled to keep a register open to inspection by the Board of Agriculture, showing the quantity and designation of each consignment, and power was given to officers of the board to enter at all reasonable times manufactories of margarine and margarine cheese. The amount of butter-fat that might be present in margarine was limited to 10%, while under the Margarine Act of 1887 an unlimited admixture might have been made, provided that the mixture, no matter how large the percentage of butter, was sold as margarine. As is further explained below, the difficulty of distinguishing without chemical aid between pure butter and margarine containing a considerable percentage of butter is very great, and fraudulent sales continued to be common after the passing of the Margarine Act. The labelling section of the Food Act 1875 (§ 8), which had been systematically circumvented, was modified, a label being no longer recognized as distinctly and legibly written or printed, unless it is so written or printed that the notice of mixture given by the label is not obscured by other matter on the label, though labels that had been continuously in use for at least seven years before the commencement of the act were not interfered with. In consequence of the admitted unfairness of asking for a portion of the contents of a properly labelled tin or package and then instituting proceedings because no declaration of admixture had been made, it was enacted that no person shall be required to sell any
