MUNICIPAL TRADING.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It appears to me that in your article in the Spectator of March 31st on the above subject you have left out of account one of the most important questions affecting the comparison between private and municipal trading, a com- parison which arises out of the difference between their respective conditions. In private enterprise the trader is restricted and kept in order by the circumstances of the market in which he deals ; if he gives bad work he suffers in credit ; if his work is too cheap he suffers in money; if too dear, in the amount of business that will come to him. In the case of a trading municipality these restrictions apply only to a very limited extent. As your writer remarks, " the general undefined responsibility to the ratepayer" has " small practical valve." If the work is unsatisfactory it is not the responsible committee that suffers either in credit or purse, so that the most powerful control over the private trader is practically powerless over a municipality —I am,
Sir, &c., ALFRED F. BUXTON. 32 Great Cumberland Place, W.
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