The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 19, 1870

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 686, 19 July 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 19, 1870

We notice the appointment of a Select Committee of the House to consider tke best means of preventing the use of fraudulent weights and adulteration. Mr Travers, in moving for the above committee, referred to the fact that the inspection of weights and measures was very much neglected throughout the Colony, and that so far as the office of inspector was concerned, the sinecure. It may be readily believed that the office in some portions of the country has been practically a dead letter, inasmuch as those who have filled it have been expected to perform the duties without any consideration in the way of pay. As applied to this portion of the Colony, however, it is very questionable whether such an appointment is greatly required. Mr Travers makes gushing reference to the hardship entailed upon the working classes in Wellington by the use of dishonest weights, and though possibly there and elsewhere competition may be sufficientlysevereto induce fraudulent trading, the state of the West Coast is not such as yet to give rise to any well-based apprehension that the public are imposed upon in this respect. With regard to the motion as applied to the adulteration of articles of consumption there can be little doubt as to the desirability of exercising some control. It can scarcely be questioned that generally throughout the colony the system of adulterating articles of colonial manufacture has been very extensively practised, and in the matter of spirits it is equally certain that all manner of abominable concoctions are resorted to in making up the article for sale after its importation, and that the public are the victims of a large amount of adulteration which it would be in the power of the Legislature to partially check. It is equally certain that if by introducing deleterious compounds sixty gallons of pure spirits can be converted into a hundred gallons the revenue must be very seriously affected. The Committee's report is to be brought up in a month, when we trust they, will have succeeded in devising some plan by which the public may, to some* extent, be relieved from the extensive and injurious impositions under which they are suffering.