§ Mr. HIGHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been drawn to Ordinance No. 9, of 1911, Southern Nigeria, and to the difficulty imposed by Clause 2 upon merchants and manufacturers in the stamping of the exact number of inches on every piece of woven goods, and if it is permissible for such merchants importing folded woven goods into Southern Nigeria to omit the inches in stamping the goods and to stamp the yards and quarter yards only, so long as the length stamped upon such goods is not in excess of the actual length of the piece?
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Mr. HARCOURTThe requirement to which my hon. Friend refers was not introduced for the first time by the Ordinance of 1911, but has been in force since 1893, and I am not aware that any serious difficulty has been experienced in complying with it. The object of the law is to safeguard the interests of the purchaser, and it is unlikely therefore that exception would be taken in practice to an understatement of the length of any piece.