HC Deb 14 July 1859 vol 154 cc1201-2
MR. EDWIN JAMES

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any information has reached Her Majesty's Government to the effect that more than two-thirds of the provincial and local Standards of Weights and Measures have been used more than twenty years without reverification, and that the same are defective and unjust, and cannot be relied on as tests of accuracy; that such Standards nevertheless furnish the legal means and evidence by which the integrity and accuracy of the Weights and Measures used by the tradesmen for commercial purposes are ascertained and tested; that legal convictions take place and penalties are enforced for non-conformity to such Standards; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Ministers intend to take any steps for the prevention of so great an injustice.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

said, that the Question of his hon. and learned Friend, was founded upon a Report of the Astronomer Royal which was laid before Parliament last session. That Report stated that besides the standards of weights and measures deposited in the Exchequer, under the custody of the Comptroller of the Exchequer, there were certain provincial and local standards of weights and measures, which might be called secondary standards, as to which there had been a deficiency of reverification of late years. The process had been very irregularly repeated; and, in answer to his hon. and learned Friend's question, he would beg to remark—first, that there was no need of the process of reverification being repeated very often, as the Standards, having been once verified, were subject to very little wear and tear and to little or no change; and, secondly that the law did not provide a fund for the payment of the costs of such reverification, which must fall either upon the public purse or upon some local fund.

MR. WALPOLE

said, he wished to in- quire whether the Act of Parliament was not defective as to the subject of verifying these Weights and Measures; and, if so, whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to bring in a Bill to remedy the defect?

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

said, he should have no objection to the introduction of a measure on the subject, if the question of how the expense of the reverification should be borne could be satisfactorily settled.