TRADE PROTECTION

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume III, Issue 275, 24 August 1881, Page 3

TRADE PROTECTION

To thk Emitok. Some time ago a tnfciou from the Blenheim Trade Protection Society, consisting, I believe, of Messrs. Laurence, Purser, Hustwiok, Dodson, and others, waited on Mr. Seymour, M.H.E., and asked him to use his influence in getting the Picton gaol re-opened for short sentenced prisoners, viz., debtors who did not pay their accounts and were liable to imprisoment. Can yon inform me if this action was taken for the protection of wholesale or retail dealers ? My principal object in writing this letter is to say that I did then, and do now, consider it a piece of impertinence for any self-constituted deputation to endeavor to get a member of Parliament to do an injustice. What the member for the Wnirau should be asked to do is to get an addition to the present lock-up for short-sentenced prisoners, not for the protection of creditors, either wholesale or retail, hut for the due administration of justice. This can only be done by having the deputy gaol where the bulk of the population is. While upon this subject, I would like to say a few words in respect to the “Trade Protection Society' 1 itself. Prom its outset it seems to have been a semi-political institution,, and as all its members arc at least supposed to work together it is evident it is within their power to ruin the credit of anyone they choose, who might he a deserving though unfortr. late man, or to bolster up the credit of a rank impostor. It seems to’me it is scarcely a legal proceeding to damage a man’s credit by combining to refuse it to him, nor does it look like legitimate business. I have been told that one member of the society proposed that no one should be a member who had compounded with his creditors or had been a bankrupt, and that strange to say the only member of this moral Society who voted for the resolution was the one who proposed it. It was perhaps considered best to extend its operations as widely as possible. lam also told that on several occasions the names of persons who have left here have been posted to other places where they have gone, as being those of “ bad marks,” and if such is the ease, 1 can only trust tjiat some of these unfortunate victims will obtain proof of this and test the question of whether the v can recover damages at law.—l am kc. I’KO Bo.no ITiiucO.