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69
were accommodating 53 cows at Kidbrooke Manor Farm. As it
now appeared to your Committee that the London County Council
were trenching upon the work and duty of this Council, your Town
Clerk was authorized to take the opinion of Counsel upon the
point, and if he concurred with this view, to brief Counsel to
appear before the Licensing Authority to support the application
for the license and oppose the action of the County Council in
themselves interfering with the duties of the Borough Council, and
to urge that the concurrent exercise of a system of independent
inspection by the London County Council is likely to cause confusion
and inconvenience. The opinion of Charles E. Allan,
Esq., M.A., LL.B., Barrister-at-Law, was taken upon this point,
and he concurred with the view already expressed, and appeared
before the Licensing Committee of the County Council to protest
against the action of that Council for renewal of this license.
The license was eventually renewed, but certain very onerous
restrictions were placed upon the occupier of the premises in
respect to his next application for renewal of the said license.
You will undoubtedly see that the above dual system of inspection
and control is likely to lead to much inconvenience, and
to an undue harassing of the occupiers of these various licensed
properties in this and other Boroughs. The former example of
this difficulty mentioned above, fully bears out the point, for
although the occupier had already spent a certain amount of
money and was preparing to expend a much larger amount upon
the improvement of his premises under the direction of the
officials of this Council, in order that no objection might be
taken to the renewal of his license, yet the officer of an outside
Authority, who had really nothing whatever to do with the matter,