TOLLS AND WEIGHBRIDGES.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 819, 20 December 1865, Page 2

TOLLS AND WEIGHBRIDGES.

CTo the Editor of the Evening Star.J

Sir, —Does our Government make the most of everything? The writer is doubtful. Small matters seem beneath their notice, and weightyones beyond their ken. Instance the five jetties and two weighbridges to be let in one lot by auction on the 26th, current, the highest bidder to pay a month's rent in advance and find security for the other eleven payments &c. Is this not an interference with the freedom of sale? For every one that is able to put down a month's rent for the five jetties and two weighbridges and find the other securities, there may be twenty equally respectable who could only pay in advance the rent of one jetty and find the required security. Consequently, the twenty poorer men must stand aside. This is a great wrong done to them, and a loss to the revenue of perhaps from 15 to 20 per cent, on the amount the jetties, &c, may let for. Is our vigilant Superintendent asleep ? In my native country such would not be allowed. There toll bars, jetties, &c, are put up for sale singly, and let to the highest bidder. When the hammer falls, he may pay the rent in advance if the pleases, or have present an undoubted guarantee to see that the articles of sale are carried out. Any one may bid for as many as he pleases, and whatever number falls to his share cannot be called a monopoly, being bought singly at a public sale. Not so with the weighbridges. One person may hold a portion only, otherwise weight could not *be checked. It is also the custom or the law that weighbridges must be kept clean, overhauled every fourteen days, and the joints blackleaded. The Inspector of Weights must prove their correctness often, as they are more 1 able to get out of order than ordinary weighirg beams. Have the weighbridges in Dunedm ever been inspected and proved correct ? Your insertion of the above in your paper, with any comment thereon will much oblige

One who wants Employment.

[Our correspondent will find by referring to the proceedings in the Provincial Council that the subject he writes about was brought before the notice of the Government the day befora yesterday.—Ed. E.S.]