View report page

174
In the result Mr. Justice Rowlatt decided there was no case to go to
the jury, and instructed them to acquit the defendants. He said it was
due to the prosecution that he should say why he thought they failed,
especially as on the previous night he had, on a first view of the Authorities
expressed the view that he could not stop the case. It was a difficult
Statute to construe. The Section pointed to there being an article which
was, physically speaking, liable to be seized, that was to say an article
which was still at large, and had not been put out of commerce by condemnation
or devotion to destruction in any way.
In this case the article had been surrendered, and a consent order,
practically, made for its condemnation.
On application, on behalf of the defendants, for costs against the
prosecutor or the County, the Judge refused to make an order. He said ;
" My decision may be wrong. I cannot help feeling that your clients
(the defendants) have been rather fortunate in getting a decision in their
favour from which there is no appeal. If the prosecution could have
appealed, I think they would have had a very fair chance."
The case being a criminal one there was no appeal against an
acquittal, but the defendants could have appealed against a conviction.
While the original contention that criminal proceedings could not be
effective against a limited company, where the penalty is imprisonment
as an alternative to a fine, has been over-ruled, the decision in the case
will prevent effective action being taken against wholesale vendors,
except where goods have been seized by the Local Authorities on the premises
or in the actual possession of the retailer, he having given no notice
to the Authority that he had any unsound goods.
The Public Health and Housing Committee were of opinion it is
important that the right of action against wholesale vendors of unsound
food, which has been hitherto successfully acted upon, should be reestablished,
and there being no right of appeal in this case, that efforts
should be made to strengthen the law, to ensure conviction of
" wholesale " offenders.
The Public Health and Housing Committee recommended the Council
that representations be made to the President of the Local Government
Board on this subject, urging such amendment of the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891, as may be necessary to secure adequate protection
of the public against the sale of unsound food by wholesale vendors, and
that the other Metropolitan Borough Councils be asked to support such
representations.