PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 23 



into active operation on the 1st July next. An advisory- 

 committee has been appointed under the act to frame 

 regulations and establish definitions and standards of purity 

 for all articles of food and drink, drugs, disinfectants, 

 medicines, colouring materials, food preservatives, and 

 even food colouring materials. A leading principle adopted 

 deals with the correct labelling of food stuffs sold in pack- 

 ages, cartons and hermetically sealed tins. That principle 

 is, that the public have a right to know, by a printed 

 declaration on the outside what is inside the package both 

 as to quantity and quality. So that it shall be no longer 

 possible for a manufacturer to palm off a food adulterated 

 with eighty per cent, of foreign inert matter that the con- 

 sumer is helplessly and unsuspectingly compelled to take 

 and pay for in lieu of the pure article. Whenever it is 

 deemed permissible for a harmless addition of foreign sub- 

 stance to be added to enable the seller to offer a food at a 

 lower price, a clear printed statement to that effect must 

 be recorded on the label in type, sufficiently large as not to 

 require a magnifying glass to see it. Obviously, fraudulent 

 mixtures have been, and are, the direct result of unprin- 

 cipled competition in trade. The trade demands a cheap 

 article, and the manufacturer of course is always ready to 

 meet the demand. It is just here that the Pure Food Act 

 will be welcome to the honest manufacturer, inasmuch as 

 a definite rule will be laid down as to the standard of 

 quality to which the whole trade must comply, and which 

 must therefore tend to equalise the conditions of sale all 

 round and prevent any undue advantage on the part of the 

 unscrupulous adulterator. 



The progress of original research in science quiet, and 

 unobtrusive like the rising tide, bears with it facts that may 

 await years and years for explanation and co-relation: no 

 one can foresee their application and far reaching applica- 

 tion. Thus, the Geissler tube led to the high vacua tubes 



