§ MR. T. W. NUSSEY (Pontefract)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the fact that the Lincoln Inspector of Weights and Measures, in the latter part of February 1894, refused to pass a large number of quart earthenware jugs made by Messrs. Poulson Bros, of Ferrybridge, which had been duly stamped and passed by the Inspector of Weights and Measures for the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the ground that the jugs held more than the one ounce allowed by the rules and regulations of the Board of Trade appertaining to Lincolnshire, although they held less and up to the two ounces allowed by the rules and regulations of the Board of Trade in force in Yorks; whether a jug once stamped is always a legal measure; and whether he will, if necessary, consider the advisability, in view of the present vexatious restraints on trade owing to the discrepancies of allowances 31 in different parts of the country, of taking steps to create and put in force universal and uniform regulations in the matter of allowances.
§ MR. BRYCEThe Board of Trade were made acquainted in February last with the circumstances referred to in the question of the hon. Member, and the Standards Department then placed themselves in communication with the Local Authorities thereon. It is the fact that the amount of error allowed on earthenware measures by the regulations made by the City of Lincoln and the County Council of Lincoln, under the Weights and Measures Acts, is less than the amount of error allowed by the regulations made by the County Council of the West Riding of Yorkshire. I agree with the hon. Member that uniformity in this respect is desirable; but the carrying out of the law rests with the local authorities who appoint the Inspectors, and the Board of Trade have no power to compel uniformity of regulations in the matter of allowances. A measure once stamped is a legal measure all over the Kingdom, unless proved to be false or unjust.