920 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



it was withdrawn, redrafted, and again presented to Parliament on 

 the 30th November, 1897, when it was proposed to have the butter 

 branded " Factory," " Milled," or " Dairy," according- to the source 

 of manufacture (vide Hansard, 1st December, 1897, page 427). The 

 Honorable Mr. Graham in supporting the Bill said " The whole of 

 the opposition to this Bill came from one source, the middlemen of 

 Melbourne." Mr. Bowser (ibid 433) stated "He would remind those 

 opposed to supervision of the result of the absence of supervision in 

 the Northern States of America. In 1881 the Northern States stood 

 at the head of the market with their butter and cheese but in 1891 

 they were at the bottom. During that time there was a falling off of 

 93,000,000 lbs. of butter and 22,000,000 lbs. of cheese. That falling 

 off' was said to be entirely due to the fact that the butter export trade 

 passed into the hands of the middlemen of New York and was so 

 degraded by them that the value of the butter in London generally 

 fell." Mr Taverner {Hansard, 1/12/97, page 45) said "the terms h.e 

 Avould accept were as follows : '' factory,' ' dairy,' ' milled,' and 

 ' pastry.' " On the 14th Decemljer, 1897, this Bill was passed by the 

 Assembly without a division and promptly rejected by the Legis- 

 lative Council. In 1898 a modification of the original bill was rein- 

 troduced but was unfortunately so clipped and trimmed when passed 

 into law, that it left the Department in a worse position in regard to 

 control than before, because it forced us to place the brand of a 

 " Crown " under the words " Approved for Export" and over the 

 word '^Victoria" on all butter other than pastry. Prior to the 

 passing of the " Exported Products Act 1898," all butter for export 

 had been classed into three different grades, the soundest and best 

 butters 'being stamped " Sanctioned by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, Colony of Victoria," with a "crown" in the centre surmounted 

 by the letters " Y.R." The class between good butter and pastry 

 was not stamped, while pastry butter was branded with the word 

 " pastry." Outsiders and those in the trade abroad naturally con- 

 clude that if an article bears the Government stamp it is an indication 

 of quality, but now when a person finds two extremes of quality under 

 one official brand, he shrugs his shoulders and says " There's 

 Government inspection for you — this is what happens when the 

 Government interferes with private business." An attempt was 

 made in 1901 to get a measure passed to patch up the defects known 

 to exist, but this was also summarily thrown out by the Upper House. 

 There is not the slightest doubt but that had the measures required 

 by the Department of Agriculture been passed, the transposing of 

 brands, and some of the other practices revealed by the Commission 

 would have been impossible. 



Appointment of an Expert in London. 



Mr. Taverner's first act after Lis appointment as General Agent 

 to represent the State of Victoria in Britain in selecting a man with 

 an intimate knowledge of the perishable export trade in the State 

 must be commended. With a purely clerical or non-expert assistant. 



