The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-07 00:00:00

Court of Aldermen.

Yesterday the Aldermen of London held a meeting at
Guildhall, for the despatch of business, the Lord Mayor

(Alderman Hale) presiding.
For the first time in the history of the Corporation, a
Parsee gentleman applied to the Court for permission to
practice the profession of a broker in the city of London
The applicant was Burzorgee Dorabjee Burzirjee, and ho

asked to be admitted to act as a general produce broker. A

number of gentlemen of repute in the city had certified to
his great respectability, and he had complied with all the
requisite formalities. The Court, recognising the appliccnt
as a subjcct of her Majesty in India, gave the requisite per-
mission with every mark of respect.

BROKERS' RESTS.
This subject was brought yesterday undor the prominent

consideration of tho Court in a variety of ways. 0 t late the

impost of brokers' rents levied on thatclassof the commn-

nity in the city has ciuscd somo dissatisfaction both among
some of those who pay and still more among those who
contrive to evade it. By way of rendering what follows
intelligible it should be statrd that from time imme-

morial the Court of Aldermen has, in the public in-
terest, exercised a supervision over the numerous class

of brokers in the city. First of all it requ;ros that the
memorial of every applicant for permission to practise shall
be endorsed by a limited number of persons of known stand-
ing and repute, who are able to vouch for his respectability,
. _ _

and then that ho shall give security for his good behaviour,
and especially for his observance of certain long-established
and recognised rules for the conduct of his business, him-
self in £l,OOO and two sureties in £5OO each. The principal
one of those rules, which aro entirely coLcAved in the pub-
lic interest, is that a broker shall never act except in the
legitimate capacity of an intermediary between buyer and
seller—in other words, that he shall not act as a buyer or
seller on his own account. The supervision of the magis-

strates of London in this respect, to the evasion of which a
penalty of £lOO attaches, has, upon the whole, always been
beneficial, and again and again men who have taken upon
themselves the office of a broker without authority have
been brought within the scope of the criminal law for frauds
which they have practised upon innocent and confiding
persons, It remains to be stated that brokers pay each a
small nominal rent of £5 a year to the Corporation, just as
an atturiaoy pays an ann"ni a - a:-
practise his profession on foot, and these rents pro-
duce from £5,000 to £6,000 a year, which sum goes
to augment the general revenues of the city. The
subject received a curious illustration from an incident
in the proceedings of yesterday. A memorial addressed to
the Court was read from Messrs Capper, Escoute, and Law-
son, stockbrokers. They stated that on the sth of Nov. Mr
G. C. Capper, one of their firm, received an order from the
Chamberlain of London, in accordance, as he understood,
with an order of a committee of Aldermen, instructing him
to sell sufficient Consols standing in the names of the poor
of Emmanuel Hospital, which is governed by the Court of
Aldermen, to produce the sum of £7OO, Mr Capper being
out of town, the sale was effected by his partners, and the
stock duly transferred by the Chamberlain on the 16th of
November, On the 21st the memorialists, very much to
their sarprise, received a letter from the City solicitor re-
questing them to favour him, on or before the 24th, with
£3OO, being penalties incurred by them for acting as brokers
within tho City without being admitted by the Court of
Mayor and Aldermen, The memorialists urged that they
had not the remotest idea that in carrying out the instruc-
tions of a committee of the Court of Aldermen they were
rendering themselves ;liable to a penalty, or that as any
members of the Steck Exchange they were incurring
penalty in charging commission on transactions entered into
by thorn in the execution of their business. Had they had
any such idea they would hive lost no time in applying to
the Court of Aldermen fur admission to the office of broker.

Having now for the first time learnt that they were con-
travening the city laws they were willing at once to make
the requisite application, and to take such steps as were
necessary for their admission. Under the circumstances
considering that they were acting in total ignorance of
doing anything that was not strictly legal and right, the
memorialists humbly prayed the Court to instruct the City
Solicitor to withdraw his application for the penalties so
unconsciously incurred in carrying out the instructions of
one of their committees.
On the motion of Al3erman WATERLOW, seconded by
Alderman Sir R. CARDEN, the prayer of the memorial was
granted.

Mr Conran, the Remembrancer, reported that notice
had been given of an intention by parties outside the Cor-
poration to apply to Parliament next Session to repeal so
much of an existing act as imposes a penalty of £lOO on any
person acting as a broker without the requisite licence frora
the Court of Alderman.
Alderman WATERLOW then proc.eded, pursuant to no-
tice, to propound a motion on the general subject. He
thought the time had arrived when the Court of Aldermen
should take active steps to place all the brokers in the city
of London on the same rooting. There were men, he said,
who regularly followed the business of a broker, and yet
who gave no security fcr their good behaviour and paid no
rent, while all the more .egitimate practitioners obeyed the
regulations laid down by the magistrates in the public in-
terest. He read an extract from a letter recently addressed
by "A Sworn Broker" to the Times, in which the writer
said :—" The Lord Mayor has recently had before him a
person who was charged on suspicion with improper deal-
ings, and who has been notorious for the last two years fir
advertising in all the papers that he b ,ught and sold .teeke
and shares at half the usual commission. The Lord Mayor
had this person's contracts produced before him when in-
vestigating the charge. Now, on behalf of the public and
my brother brokers I wish to ask the Lord Mayor the fol-
lowing questions :—Did any of the city officers take pro-
ceedings against this man during the time he was exten-
sively advertising to buy or sell, ho not being an authorised
broker ? If they did not, then the plea of protection to the
public is all nonsense. Had the authorities done their duty
the aggrieved party would perhaps not have had to appear
as a prosecutor. Since the case transpired has the Lord
Mayor instructed the proper officers to inflict the pains and
penalties upon the offender for those contracts which came
under his notice ? If be has not done so, it only shows
that I am fined in the sum of £5 every year because I am
too conscientious to run the risk of breaking a law which
the great municipal authorities have not the inclination to
put in force. The instance I have referred to is not an
isolated one. There arc and have been numbers exercising
the calling of a broker without any impediment from the
civic authorities, and many have appeared before them
under circumstances similar to those I have just referred
to." Upon that letter the writer of the Money article in the
limesthus commented :—" The objections to the payment
are not well founded, butthe argument that the city, so long
as they exact it, aro bound to enforce vigilantly those regu-
lations for the advantage of the
public which aro urged as
the justification for it. cannot be queatimed. many
circum-
stances that have recently transpired would seem to
strengthen the impression that the corporation have in this
respect much power to do good, and it may therefore be
hoped they will now giv.e attention to the matter, and for
their own dignity resolve either to deal unflinchingly for
the future with every case that may require action, or to
abandoni
r read
Hasse, a
letter,
th
o eimpostn
Alderman Waterlow next
and purport, addressed by
Threadneedle-street, a stock
similar Elation-court,
tt o a
i;oe
iogt:e altogether."
, objecter . ' '
and sharebroker of nearly 20 years standing, to the City so-
licitor ; and he moved that it be referred to the General
Purposes Committee to adopt such measures as they thin
fit for ascertaining what persons were acting as brokers
in the City and liberties without being duly admitted by the
Court, and for enforcing against them the penalty imposed
by the act of Parliament, and that the committee have au-
thority to give such directions in the matter as might from
time to time be requisite.
The motion was seconded by Alderman ROSE, M.P:,who,
speaking from an experience of 25 years, held that the su-
pervision exercised by the Court over the brokers had tended
a
greatly to the public advantage, both from the promptitude
publicity with which it was brought to bear upon those
who evaded the law, and from the practical influence it had
over the dealings of all the more respectable of the brokers.
The resolution was put and carried.