§ MR. HICKMANasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he will give instructions to stop at the port of entry all goods coming from abroad which bear marksfalsely indicating that they are manufactured in this Country?
§ THE PRESIDENT (Mr. MUNDELLA)The Customs do not in this matter act under the direction of the Board of Trade, but of the Treasury. They inform me that they do their utmost to stop the importation of goods bearing the name of a place in this country which would, from its reputation for particular manufactures, impart a special character or reputation to the goods bearing such name; and they have recently seized and condemned several cases of cutlery imported from abroad, marked with the brand of Sheffield, which were not of Sheffield manufacture.
In reply to Mr. A. O'CONNOR,
§ MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that he was not aware of foreign goods being marked with Sheffield brands by Sheffield men; but he had heard that such was the case, and he would be very glad to see such fraudulent practices stopped.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked the right hon. Gentleman, Whether the only case of false marking discovered in Sheffield was not in the case of a charge brought against the proprietor of a local Radical paper, who had sold very cheap and bad spectacles under a description which did not belong to them?
§ MR. MUNDELLA, in reply, said, that he was not aware of anything of the kind having occurred. If the proprietor of the Radical paper in question had sold spectacles of foreign make marked as English, the probability was that he had been also imposed upon, as others might be, by goods so imported and falsely marked. He thought it was a deplorable thing that, either at home or abroad, the good name of any town should be pirated by a false mark.