128 



The cost of a manual plant such as I saw in operation 

 in Japan, both at Government institutions and in small 

 installations, is small according to my American price 

 lists, and I am in correspondence with British firms for 

 further quotations which will be duly reported. But for 

 running a cannery a special European expert, probably 

 of the class of factory foreman, is required, since bad 

 canned goods are very bad and dangerous.* 



59. Preservatives — Salt. — Though the quantity of 

 salt required may not be great it should be issued, for 

 compaiative purposes, at fish-curing yard rates, and the 

 usual petty officers attached to the station with the 

 proviso that such officers' duties shall not be confined to 

 the issue of salt, biit that they shall be under my orders 

 and made both to learn and to supervise the new methods 

 in order that they may on the one hand not be idle and 

 on the other that they mj.y qualify thereafter to teach in 

 the ordinary fish-curing yards. 



60. Other pi eservatxves. — I propose to use certain 

 well-known patent and other preservatives in small 

 additions to salt according to the practice in other 

 countries, guided by the rules laid down in the instruc- 

 tions issued with the preservatives, and by the authori- 

 tative suggestions of the Departmental Committee on 

 Food preservatives. I have given reasons in paragraphs 

 25 and 26 siLy^ra for the necessity of using these innocuous 

 preservatives which are based on boron compounds ; 

 these salts or acids are used in very small quantities, are 

 partly volatilized by warmth, and almost, if not entirely, 

 disappear in the processes of curing, washing, and 

 cooking. As shown above, it is a choice between food 

 rendered safe and wholesome by slight addition of 

 preservatives innocuous in themselves except in large 

 doses continuously repeated over a long period — a 

 condition absolutely the reverse of that of the occasional 

 consumer of small quantities of fish — , and food thrown 

 as now on the market in a putrid or semi-putrid 

 state, in which condition it is not merely repulsive but 

 dangferous not so much from its bacterial contents 

 but from the poisonous results of bacterial action. 

 Foreign fresh herring are borated and so are many of 



* Established at Calicut aad very successful. A Europeaa expert wa,s not 

 fo-.;nd to be necessary. 



