HC Deb 04 April 1895 vol 32 cc932-3
MR. F. FRYE (Kensington, N.)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can give any information as to what is being done by the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the Chief of the City Police in reference to bond tea trading shops, which are still carrying on business in the City and within the Metropolitan area?

MR. ASQUITH

This matter is receiving full attention, but it might tend to defeat the ends of justice to state at present what steps the Police are taking.

MR. F. C. FRYE

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has observed that in the case of a conviction of a person named Jenson at Wolverhampton for the sale of bond tea, when Jenson was fined about £51 and costs, the statement was made to the Stipendiary Magistrate that the Treasury had absolutely declined to interfere in bond tea trading, and whether such a statement is correct?

MR. ASQUITH

It is not the fact that the Treasury Solicitor has declined to interfere in bond tea trading. He offered to conduct the prosecution of Jenson at the North London Police Court in December last, but the Grocers' Society, by whom it had been started, wished to continue it themselves.