HC Deb 23 July 1847 vol 94 cc696-9
MR. BANKES

, pursuant to notice, rose to bring under the consideration of the House the petition of the Rev. Harry Farr Yeatman, relative to the sale of bread. The petitioner was a magistrate in the county of Dorset for upwards of thirty years; and he complained that there existed no legal protection for the poor in respect to the sale of bread. He hoped his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General would inform the House whether the state of the law, as detailed at length in the petition, were not as described, and whether it were right the poor should be left exposed to the liability of becoming the victims of unprincipled men following the trade of bakers. He did not mean that bakers generally were more unprincipled than the followers of other trades and professions, including the profession of the law itself; but what he wanted was that a system of protection should be instituted in favour of the poor and of the honest tradesman, against the acts of dishonest traders. The petitioner stated that— In proof of the extent to which the fraudulent sale of bread 'deficient in its due weight' might be carried, and (as a consequence) of the extent to which the consumer and the labouring classes might be robbed and cheated of their just rights and dues, your petitioner would beg permission to declare that no less than eighty loaves all 'deficient in due weight,' and some to the extent of five ounces each loaf, were at one and the same time, under the provisions of 59th George III., cap. 36, produced before your petitioner for adjudication, and proved on oath to have been sold and delivered by a single baker; for which offence the full penalty of five shillings per ounce with costs was inflicted by your petitioner in his judicial capacity; whilst your petitioner would remark, and would earnestly direct the attention of your hon. House to the fact, that, at this present precise and exact time and period, and week after week, and in every week, loaves are now sold and delivered by the bakers in this part of the county of Dorset, and delivered to the paupers who 'receive relief in kind,' under the existing poor law, which loaves have recently been weighed and proved to be deficient to the extent of five and even six ounces each loaf, thus causing serious loss to the consumers in general, to the ratepayers of parishes in unions, and in many instances to the extent of fifty or sixty ounces of bread; that is to say, to the extent of three loaves and twelve-sixteenths per week to the labouring man with a large family, and this too with perfect impunity to the persevering and guilty offender under the existing law. It appeared there was no mode of punishing a baker who had loaves under the nominal weight for which they were sold, except by an action for fraud, which of course was beyond the means of a poor man. The petitioner, alluding to this matter, said that the —"provision and regulations of the statute are entirely inoperative, and lead to no useful result whatever; for, although by the 4th section of the 6th and 7th William IV., cap. 37, it is enacted 'That from and after the commencement of this Act, all bread sold beyond the limits aforesaid, namely, the city of London, shall be sold by the several bakers or sellers of bread respectively, beyond the said limits, by weight; and in case any baker or seller of bread shall sell, or cause to be sold, bread in any other manner than by weight, then, and in such ease, every baker or seller of bread, shall for every such offence forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding forty shillings;' yet your petitioner would humbly complain that no penalty is imposed by this statute on the baker or seller of bread, who sells, or causes to be sold, bread, which is of a less specific weight than that which the loaf offered for sale purports, or is represented to be, or which shall be delivered ' deficient in its due weight' to the public consumer (as it was enacted and directed by the wholesome statute of 59th George III., cap. 3C, sec. 11, a statute which has been repealed by 6th and 7th William IV., cap. 37, aforesaid); it being therefore certain, and of daily occurrence, that the baker and seller of bread can defraud the consumer, and the poor man especially, to any extent with perfect impunity, and thus derive great gain from dishonest trading in this department; it being also certain that the essential value of bread, as an article of consumption, depends as much upon the intrinsic weight of the loaf which is delivered, as upon the money price which is demanded or received for the loaf thus sold. He should beg, in conclusion, to move, that a Select Committee be appointed to consider the allegations contained in the petition.

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, the hon. Member did not complain so much of a want of legal enactments as of the want of the means to enforce them. What the hon. Gentleman wished to see restored, was the old system of summary jurisdiction in magistrates; but there was no reason why such a system of law should be enforced against bakers more than against other persons. He begged to deny that any combination existed among the bakers of the metropolis; and the best proof of the fact was, that there often was as much as 4d. difference in the price of the same weight of bread in different parts of the metropolis at the same time. The hon. Member might as well call for a law to prevent a Stultz from charging more for a suit of clothes than any other tailor, as to oblige the bakers of the west end to sell bread at the same price as the bakers at White-chapel.

MR. G. HEATHCOTE

said, he would only make the single remark, that he did not think Parliament could better employ the last moments of its existence than by directing its attention to a subject of so much practical importance to the poor.

The SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, he did not believe the frauds of the bakers were so general as the hon. Member, who brought forward the Motion, supposed. If the poor were generally defrauded in the manner mentioned in the petition, he thought the House would have heard some allusion to the matter from persons connected with the administration of the poor law, and from hon. Members during the recent poor-law debates.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

said, at the close, not only of the Session, but of the Parliament, it would not be seemly, but would cast, he thought, ridicule upon this House, if his hon. Friend (Mr. Bankes) persisted in pressing his Motion to a division. His hon. Friend proposed to appoint a Committee to inquire into a complicated subject of political economy, connected with the ordinary transactions of life. It was exceedingly well for his hon. Friend to make such a Motion, and to deliver a speech with a view of expressing his opinion upon the subject of political economy to which the Motion related; but it would be acting like a set of schoolboys, if, when the Black Rod appeared, they were in the lobby instead of being ready to attend the Speaker to the other House he hoped, therefore, that his hon. Friend would not put his Motion to the test of a division. They had heard indeed of a combination amongst a certain body, and a Committee was asked for to inquire into that subject, and not one argument had been urged that would justify such a Motion. Situated as we are (continued the noble Lord), instead of following you, Sir, to another place, if we go to a division, we should, when summoned, be occupied with tellers counting us in the lobby and in the House —a situation in which the House would not, at such a moment, like to find itself placed. Sir, I will not trouble the House by reading through the whole of this petition; but the last paragraph is of great importance—