INFLUENCE OF THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT ON PACKAGING or excess and shall have regard generally to all the circumstances of the case (9). I have quoted only an extremely tiny part of the complete Act and its accompanying Statutory Instruments. Anyone involved with complying with the Act should certainly be in possession of the complete document. OPERATION OF THE ACT As mentioned previously, it is believed that only approximately 40}/0 of all premises covered by the Act are examined each year, but most manufacturing establishments are visited and their apparatus and produc- tion tested between 2 and 4 times per year. There is no real and detailed evidence on the findings of these visits, but one can draw some conclusions from the reports of Weights and Measures Authorities to the Board of Trade. One such report covering 11,485 fixed premises known to be liable to inspection, showed that 4,602 of these were visited. In addition, a further 1,128 mobile premises were visited (10). It is interesting to note that the number of fixed premises known increased from 9,038 in the previous year, an indication of the seeking out of premises that took place during the year. A break-down of the findings of all prepacked samples tested is shown in Table I. Table I Testing of commodities. Classification Number Number Number otherwise examined deficient incorrect ..... Meat, fish, poultry 4,295 290 (6.8%) 194 (4.5%) Bread 6,101 224 (3.7%) 10 (0.16%) Milk 647 22 (3.4%) - Fruit & vegetables 2,132 64 (3.0%) 87 (4.1%) Intoxicating liquor 124 20 (16%) 41 (33%) Other foods 32,737 918 (2.8%) 1,556 (4.7%) Solid fuel 2,877 29 (1.0%) - Sand and ballast 28 2 (7.1%) 3 (10.7%) Other commodities 5,744 254 (4.4%) 1,059 (18.4%) It is unfortunate that toiletry and cosmetic articles are classed in with other commodities, but Table I does show that deficiencies found in this category are of the same order as for most other goods. It is very striking, however, to note the very high figure in this category of other faults (18.4%). This presumably refers to faults in the manner of marking containers in

36 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS accordance with the Act and is indicative of the relatively poor under- standing of what is required in this field. This point will be amplified below. In addition to the testing of packs, there were also many examinations of equipment in use for trade as given in Table II. Table II Examination of equipment. Nature of equipment Number examined Number incorrect Weights - Imperial Metric Length measures - Imperial Metric Capacity measures - Imperial Metric Person weighing machines Other weighing instruments Petrol and oil measuring instrument s Intoxicating liquor measuring instruments 6,949 4 1,078 26 19,821 19 128 4,444 1,102 626 (9.0%) 4 (100%) 109 (10%) Nil 567 (2.9%) 5 (26%) 37 (28.8%) ss9 (13.3%) 123 (11.2%) 396 (8.6%) 4,579 These results indicate that there is room for very considerable improve- ment all round in the equipment used, both weights, measures and instru- ments. These figures do not, of course, give a breakdown of those tests conducted in retail outlets and in manufacturing establishments, but there is an obvious case for us to pay particular attention to this field. This is emphasized by the results (Table III) of equipment submitted to the Weights and Measures Authorities for verification, when presumably the owners had taken some steps to assure themselves that the equipment was reasonably satisfactory. Table III Equipment submitted for verification. Nature of equipment Number submitted Number incorrect Weights Measures of length, capacity and volume Weighing instruments Petrol and oil measuring instruments Intoxicating liquor measuring instruments 2,439 140 419 432 1,430 76 (3.1%) 12 (8.6%) 9 (2.1%) 19 (4.4%) lSS (•0.8%)