Answering a question by Mr. Dingle Foot in the House
of Commons on Monday, Mr. Morrison, the Minister of Agriculture, promised to institute a departmental enquiry into the imposition and recovery of penalties by the Agri- cultural Marketing Boards. By doing so he allayed con- siderable dissatisfaction with what has seemed an excessive and arbitrary use of the Boards' powers. The Boards are able to impose fines for breaches of the marketing regula- tions ; since the offences are often of a very minor character, farmers or fishermen in the depths of the country may well prefer to let the case against them go by default rather than incur the heavy expenses of travelling up to London to appear before the Boards. The evils of such a system, which bears more heavily on the minor than the major offender, and hits those far distant harder than those within easy distance, are obvious ; several suggestions for improving it have been made, of which the most practicable is that the Boards should send out representatives " on assize " and go to the offender rather than make him come to London.
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