The Report of the Food Council was published last Saturday.
It is expected that a Bill giving effect to the recommendations will be introduced after Easter. It is recommended that the giving of short weight or measure and oral misrepresentation of weight or measure should be made statutory offences. The Report next defines the quantities in which food should be sold. A preliminary list of the articles covered is provided, but it is recommended that the Board of Trade should have power to revise it. The idea is to extend the practice of sales by net weight which at present applies only to tea, bread and coal. The trick of weighing the paper wrapper will have to disappear. The retailers chiefly affected will be the grocer, the milkman and the butcher. Traders, however, are to be safeguarded from prosecution if they can prove a loss of weight to be due to unavoidable evaporation or to a bona fide mistake. What the Food Council has accomplished, though it is armed with no powers, is really remarkable. Simply by publicity it has instilled fear into wrong- doers and has sketched a Bill which will probably be passed by common consent.
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