Mat 28, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



473 



A prominent manufacturer of butterine lately told 

 the writer, in response to an inquiry, that, in his 

 opinion, not over twenty-five per cent of the 

 butterine made in the United States is sold under 

 its true name. It may safely be assumed that 

 the estimate is not too low, and that fully three- 

 quarters of the product is eventually sold and 

 eaten as butter. Reliable statistics of the produc- 

 tion of imitation butter are not to be obtained, 

 so far as I have been able to find, but it must be 

 enormous. The fact, which is stated on good au- 

 thority, that Chicago, one of the chief seats of the 

 manufacture, exports more ' butter ' than it im- 

 ports, is suggestive in this connection. The man- 

 ufacturer, it may be assumed, sells his product 

 as an imitation, though even here facilities for 

 deception are afforded in the use of such names 

 as 'creamery' and 'dairy' butterine, and in the 

 branding of packages with the names of imagi- 

 nary creameries. But as the imitation passes 

 through the hands of jobber, retailer, and restau- 

 rant or boarding-house keeper, to the consumer, 

 it undergoes a transformation, until, at the end, 

 at is the exception when it is not butter simply, 

 with no suffix. Since the imitation can be pro- 

 duced much cheaper than the genuine article, 

 and can with difficulty be distinguished from it, 

 it affords a tempting opportunity to the middle- 

 man to increase his profits. As a natural result, 

 the manufacture of and trade in genuine butter 

 have suffered under this unfair competition, and 

 a wide-spread change in the butter trade of the 

 cities is taking place. Consumers, wisely or un- 

 wisely, are generally very averse to eating butter- 

 ine at all, as well as to paying the price of butter 

 for it, and in self-defence are coming more and 

 more to make contracts for butter directly with 

 reliable producers, to the benefit of both parties 

 and the injury of the middlemen, who seem now 

 to be in a fair way to reap as they have sown. 



Legislation. — The undoubted injury to the 

 dairy business wrought by the manufacture and 

 fraudulent sale of butterine and oleomargarine 

 has been the incentive to an earnest search for a 

 remedy ; and the aid of legislation was speedily 

 invoked, first in the shape of laws to compel the 

 branding of every package of these articles, and, 

 later, of laws prohibiting entirely their manufac- 

 ture and sale. Neither class of laws proving effec- 

 tive, and the New York law having been pro- 

 nounced unconstitutional by the court of appeals, 

 the aid of national legislation is now being in- 

 voked. 



Several bills upon this subject have been in- 

 troduced into the present congress ; but the one 

 which has become most prominent, and has ap- 

 parently met with the most favor from the oppo- 



nents of butterine, is the substitute bill reported by 

 the committee on agriculture, by which it is intend- 

 ed to indirectly prohibit the manufacture of imita- 

 tion butter. There are numerous minor provisions ; 

 but the main ones, which render all others super- 

 fluous, are the imposition of a license-fee of six 

 hundred dollars upon every manufacturer, four 

 hundred and eighty dollars upon every wholesaler, 

 and forty-eight dollars upon every retailer, and of 

 an internal revenue tax of ten cents per pound upon 

 all imitations of butter manufactured or imported, 

 the tax upon the latter being in addition to the 

 customs duty. The internal revenue department 

 is charged with the execution of the law. In 

 short, it is proposed to tax the business out of 

 existence. 



The writer does not hesitate to express his belief 

 that the enactment of this law is not desirable. 

 As is evident from the description already given 

 of the process of manufacture, and as the writer 

 is convinced by personal inspection, imitation but- 

 ter, when properly made, or when made as the 

 manufacturers claim that it is, is a perfectly clean- 

 ly, wholesome article of food. Granting this, the 

 prohibition of its manufacture is simply class 

 legislation, designed to advantage the producer of 

 butter by increasing the price of his product, to 

 the detriment of the consumer. The dairy inter- 

 est of the country is undoubtedly of great magni- 

 tude, and may well be fostered in all legitimate 

 ways ; but no interest has the right to be ' pro- 

 tected ' at the expense of the whole people. 



Another objection to a heavy tax on this article, 

 unless it be absolutely and hopelessly prohibitory, 

 is that it will tend to stimulate exactly what ap- 

 pears to be now the greatest danger connected with 

 the manufacture of butter- substitutes. In addi- 

 tion to the pressure of competition, we should have 

 the pressure of taxation forcing the manufacturer 

 to seek cheaper and cheaper sources for his raw 

 materials, and tempting him to use unhealthy 

 fats, if he can do so without detection. 



Further, the writer ventures to doubt whether 

 the permanent injury which this manufacture 

 will work to the dairy interest will be so great, or 

 the advantage of its suppression so marked, as is 

 commonly supposed, provided that the imitations 

 are compelled to be sold for what they are. But- 

 terine, undoubtedly, has depressed the price of 

 butter, partly by displacing it, and partly by creat- 

 ing a general distrust of the genuineness and 

 wholesomeness of what is offered to the consumer 

 as butter. It is worth considering, however, to 

 what extent this would be offset, in time, by the 

 increased consumption of butter, both per se and 

 in butterine, which will presumably follow from 

 its lower price. 



