The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2716, 31 October 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1871.

As a rule we think it unwise to question the decisions arrived at by Magistrates and Judges, although occasionally they may not approve themselves to our judgment as correct. We have full faith in the uprightness of the bench, and consider it tar better that an occasional mistake should pass unnoticed than that the authority of the law should be weakened. The case is different, however, when a magistrate lays down a precedent for future decisions ; and this must be our apology for commenting upon a ruling by his Worship the Mayor yesterday. The citizens of Dunedin have through their Corporation, ordained a set of Bye Laws for the regulation of certain callings, and, in order to reimburse the City for the expense of maintenance of streets and supervision, drays, cabs, &c,, have to pay license fees. But the Council have not confined their attention to the regulation of order and cleanliness; they have adopted a scale of fees which more or less interfere with trade, by requiring hawkers of fish, vegetables, and other wares to take out licenses under certain penalties. The wisdom of this arrangement is open to question when the contradictory nature of our civic fiscal policy is considered. We build market houses and try to induce people from the country to bring in their market produce and retail it when fetched at some cost and trouble by the buyer, but add to the cost of transporting it to his house if the seller puts himself in immediate connection with him by taking his cart to the door without order. But more than this, if a cabbage or cauliflower be ordered a week or an hour beforehand, a gardener may deliver it without paying license fee; but if he have the cabbage or cauliflower to sell, he must pay for selling it. The distinction between what is hawking and what is delivering goods ordered, thus becomes an everlasting source of annoyance to the gardeners. Not only are they subjected to barrassing supervision, but they have to submit to loss of time and frequent fines through having to attend the Mayor’s Court. The decision of His Worship yesterday will tend to further complication and vexatious interference. It appears that a dealer in vegetables in the Arcade gave general instructions to a market gardener “ to “ call with his cart,” and took from him what she required. On the occasion in question she cleared all off excepting some parsley. With what was done with the parsley, whether it was hawked or not, we have nothing to do ; our objection is to the ruling of the Mayor, that one who acts under a general order is a hawker, if he supplies and sells goods not specifically ordered. Dr. Johnson defines a hawker to be “ one who sells his “ wares by proclaiming them in “ the streets.” But the legal understanding of the term is that he is an itinerant trader, who goes about from place to place, carrying with him and selling goods. In the Acts of Parliament passed in England requiring them to take out licenses, hawkers and pedlars—or petty dealer’s, according to Dr Johnson —have no distinction made between them. The only ground of defence for imposing license fees upon small itinerant dealers is the policy of the English law, to en- -

courage conducting trade by fixed establishments, as being more beneficial to the public than if carried on by travelling traders. The laws passed regarding hawkers and pedlars, are supposed to be for the purpose of protecting resident traders as well as the public. But the interpretation of the bye-law, which must in future obtain in the Mayor’s Court, instead of doing this, has a tendency to embavras transactions which should be beneficial

to all, producer, distributor, and consumer. There is not a butcher nor a baker who would not be liable to information and line, if it be necessary “specifically” to order “ the goods supplied and sold that is to define the precise quantity of bread and meat to be delivered, or be under the necessity of taking out a hawker’s license. There would not be a family but would be continually subjected to inconvenience and frequent loss, besides the annoyance of being like Mrs Harper, dragged up as witnesses at Court, if such a ruling were to be sustained. Suppose instead of the arrangement between Mrs Harper and Hooper, the gardener, she had said—“ Bring “me in a load of vegetables,” could anything be moi’e indefinite] The load might have been ten or twenty dozen : it might have been all of one description, or include a dozen different kinds, yet surely it could not be considered hawking, which really implies going from place to place to sell. Instead of a specific quantity, however, she said, “ Call, and I will take what I want.” Here an order was clearly given which deprived the transaction of the character of hawking, for it by no means follows that the remainder, if any, would be hawked. For anything that appeared to the contrary Hooper might have had another customer who said, “What Mrs Harper cannot take I will.” For our own parts, we doubt the policy of taxing market gardeners for supplying the City with articles so necessary to health as vegetables ; and think it would be advantageous to bring the producer into immediate contact with the consumer free from taxation. As a question of Civic revenue, it is very doubtful whether the result of the impost is equal to the expense of collection ; and taking into consideration the additional cost of necessaries to the consumer through its operation, we are inclined to think that, like all restrictions on trade, it operates prejudicially, financially and sanitarily.