AUCTION FEES AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3119, 16 July 1867, Page 4

AUCTION FEES AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

To the Editor of the Daily Southern Cross. Sib, — Perhaps the subject on which I beg, through the medium of your widely-circulated paper, to make at few plain remarks, will not be considered objectionable by you, but they are such as I dare not tender to the local papers of this place, which, were I to do so, would be labour which would result in no good. I have never visited Auckland, and therefore I cannot say what are the rules and customs relative to the manner in which sales by auction are conducted with you ; but I have visited other parts of the. colony, and I find that the system adopted in Taranaki is the most iniquitous of any 1 have ever witnessed in any of these parts. Since I have been here, I have attended some of those auction sales held by one and another of the Taranaki salesmen, and I have been charged one penny upon every shilling or fraction of a shilling up to twelve shillings ; above that, I believe it is five per cent. , and in many instances the auctioneer claims power to refuse a bid for an article of less than five per cent, over the last bidder. And not only is the purchaser charged this obnoxious tax, but the person sending the goods for sale has to pay as well. Now, sir, 1 am unacquainted as to what protection the 1 law give 3 the public in these respects. Tome it appears extortion. Some time ago I was in Nelson, j I bought several pouuds' worth of goods at the close of the sale; the amount was handed me by MrJ Edwards, or rather by that gentleman's clerk ; the! items were charged to me in tb.9 amounts at which they were knocked down, and nothing more; The lame is the oourse adopted in Sydney and Melbourne ; and, really, I do wonder to see the people of i

Taranaki so calmly submit to such a barefaced system. I have heard many persons speak much against this charge, but they do not appear to have the moral courage to resist it. It is high time that this longstanding abuse should be broken down, and the labouring classes protected by law. I have neither the time nor the inclination to enter on the working of figures to show your readers the full amount thus taken from the public ; but it is, I believe, a faot that in no other part of the civilised world is such a system allowed or submitted to. — Yours, &c, A Practical Digger. New Plymouth, July 5, 1867. [Our correspondent may be right or wrong in hia conclusions, for anything we learn from his letter. The practice in Auckland is for auctioneers to charge their commission on the gross amount of the sale to the vendor or person employing him. On the other hand, in many parts of the United Kingdom a different practice obtains. There, auctioneers advertise*" Buyers to pay auction fees," which is & scale pretty muoh like that quoted as ruling at Taranaki. If the announcement is made by the auctioneer that the buyer is to pay auction fees, W8 cannot see where the hardship lies.— Ed. D.S.C.]