The Daily News. FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 1, 1911. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 60, 1 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 1, 1911. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

A Christchureh man wrote to the Lyttelton Times to mention that he bought a "pound" of sweets and noted oil re-weighing them that they were several ounces underweight. So one i need be at all surprised tihat any tiling is short weight, merely because measures are a matter that no one. seems to trouble about. Many people indeed imagine it to be a species of manners to demand the full measure of what one pays for. The Times instances the huge banana that is ticketed "eighteen for a shilling" in the window, and the small atrophied specimens that get into the bag, and also specifies the exceeding smallness of the ''pint" of whitebait that deceives the public into paying for what it hasn't got. At the present time the housewife is paying an inordinate price for butter. She may pay Is 5(1 or 19 6d for a "pound" that is 13 or 14 ounces, for no member of Parliament has ever brought in a Bill making it an offence to sell anything without the guaranteed weight ot measure appearing on the vessel or package. The public of New Zealand pay unknown sums every day for goods it does not get, for short-weight loaves—which are

never weighed, for pounds of butter that are not ■ pounds —and often the worst possible butter, for "reputed" pints and quarts of liquids in hollow bottomed bottles, for apparently large supplies in vessels carefully thickened to deceive the public into the belief that glass is peas, or jam. or vinegar, or any of the thousand and one things that are put into vessels of one kind and another. In the matter of "luxuries" even the buyer does not always get what lie pays for. The tin of tobacco which apparently contains two ounces of weed frequently contains a quantity short of this weight. Tradesmen are not so much to blame as the public which allow tradesmen to treat them as people who are too proud to complain. If the average man caught a pickpocket in the ( act of relieving him of his small change he would be indignant, but he may be quietly despoiled through the medium of his daily food year after year without the slightest complaint. Furthermore, in respect to the atrophied bananas and similar matters, he will refuse to be angry and will carefully return to the same despoiler time after time. Now and again the authorities make a more or less useless inspection of scales. This does not get to even a branch of the matter, let alone the root. It isn't a question oE scales being adequate to weigh correctly; it is a question of the whole of tin- buying public demanding 30 inches to the yard, 16 ounces to the pound, and that every package be plainly marked with the weight of the conents. Foolish people pay for paper and glass I hi and matter entirely foreign to the alleged contents of packages. It is a matter that seriously affects the pockets of all. The tradesman who indulges in this species of plunder may reason that his customers are bad pavers and he must therefore "get his own back." It has ever been the lot of the honest to be bled for the dishonest. If we grant that the majority of retailers who sell us the things we eat and drink day by day are absolutely 10 ounces to the pound and twenty to the seore men, all of us have seen the fact demonstrated that, many are not quite "careful," because the average buyer is so beautifully trusting, and the State takes no heed. The Parliamentarian who thrashes this matter out will have the esteem of the whole country as well as of his constituents.