Products

Bogus Milk

New Law to Check Sale of Adulterated Food in French Oceania.

From Our Own Correspondent.

PAPEETE, January 14.

OF interest to exporters doing business with French Oceania are the laws re lative to the protection of milk products, and the suppression of fraud in connection with the misrepresentation of imitation silk fabrics. These laws were made applicable to this Colony by promulgation in the Journal Official of January 1.

The provisions regarding milk products will come into force on July 1 next, after which date it is forbidden to manufacture, expose for sale, import, export, or re-export any adulterated product bearing a name calculated to deceive the purchaser or to disguise its true character. Thus the name “cream” for example, even though followed or preceded by a qualifying or fancy adjec tive, could not be used on any article destined for use as cream unless it is de rived exclusively from milk.

Similar provisions apply to cheese, pow dered milk, ice cream, and butter. In the case of canned milk, however, there is no discrimination against added cream or sugar. The importation of milk products is forbidden from countries where the manufacture of margarine is not subject to permanent control by a service of In spection, and where it is not made compul

sory to incorporate in the margarine some substance giving distinct indications of its presence upon analysis, even though pre sent in extremely small amounts. Imported milk products must show in plain characters the country of their origin upon the containers.

New Artificial Silk Laws.

The law relating to artificial silk forbids the importation, stocking, or offering for sale under the name of silk, with or with out qualification, any thread, cloth, or other articles, which are not exclusively com posed of the products or by-products of silk insects. Such articles containing not less than 50 per cent, by weight of pure silk must be denominated “soie melangee.”

Articles containing not less than 25 per cent, by weight of silk should be de nominated “melange do soie.” All articles not comprised within the above mentioned categories may in no case bear the name of silk except in so far as they bear dis tinct indications of the exact amount of silk entering into the mixture.

An Administrative Regulation will be published during the six months following the promulgation of the law, which will complete the definition of the word “silk,” and generally determine the conditions under which its provisions will be applied.

Rev. Franz J. Kirschbaum, Catholic Missionary of the Divine Word, recently stationed on the Sepik River, New Guinea, writes cheerfully to the P.I.M. from Vienna. Although so far away from the land to which he devoted 25 years of his life, he takes a keen personal interest in all that is happening in the Territory.

He sends his warmest personal regards to his friends in New Guinea—especially those in the Sepik River district.