The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1891-06-13
CONVENT GARDEN.
The Great Fruit and Vegetable Garden OF
London.


London.
John, duke of Bedford, had a chance
to live in the memory of his country
men as public benefactor as great as
the earl of Salisbury, and neglected it
for what? For the mistaken idea that
his market tolls were too valuable to be
given up T have seen it stated since
his death, says a London letter to the
Philadelphia Times, that he would have
been willing to sell Covent Garden mar
ket if he could have found a local au-
thority to undertake it's responsibilities
and expense. But he knew very well
that his monopoly of market tolls would
some day or other be taken from his
family, and b. aboishing them himself,
by destroying Covent Garden market
and improving it's site, he could have
added more than comparative amount
to the value of his other property. The
report of the royal commission on mar
ket right and tolls has just been pub
hshed, and in reading it one learns
afresh how England is still ribbed
through and through with customs that
ought to be obsolete, and how weighty
with her is the example OF a precedent
that ought never to have been set. Be-
cause it was once held that a grant to
hold market was a franchise carrying
an exclusive right, two of London's
chief markets, Covent Garden and
Spitalfelds, remain to-day in private
hands-those of the duke of Bedford
and Sir Julian Goldsmid respectively.
Covent Garden is, as is well known, the
great fruit, flower and vegetable mar
ket, and its owner can by law prevent
any other market from being estab-
lished within seven miles of him. It is
worth to the Beafords about fifteen
thousand pounds year, and for spital-
fields Sir Julian Goldsmid gets five thou
sand pounds year rent from the pres
emit lessee.
The eight m arlsets established or con-
trollel by the city Of London--Billings-
gate, Smithfe]d hay, the Central meat
and the Central fish, Faringdon, Lead
enhall, the Isiington cattle and the
Deptford foreign cattle marlzets-insure
yearly net profit of about twenty five
thousand pounds sterling to their his
toric owner, all of which, of course,
goes into the pockets of the corpora
ton and is no benefit whatever to the
rest OF the metropolis. Through these
markets passes practically all the meat
and poultry supply of London and near
ly ali the fish. Thus, it will be seen,
through the Capitalization of markets
not only does the Londoner's dinner
pay what is almost equivalent to an
octroi, but before it gets to him it must
make long journeys across the city to
the central depots and back again. This
Capitalization is thought to be greater
evil than the imposition Of tolls, and
probably it is SO. The commissions re-
port on the tolls is found to be rather
unsatisfactory document. It's historical
treatment Of the subject Of markets is
all that could be desired, but it submits
no definite plan for correcting the pres
emit system. A majority of the commits
sion does indeed favor compensation
upon the abolishing of the private fran
chises. But man need not be a social
list to feel that it is absurd to talk Of
compromising the owner of q nuisance.
Covent Garden market, in the light OF
the needs of modern London, is not
only constructively bat actually 81
nuisance, and, considering that the only
vegetables you get in England after all
are boiled potatoes and brussels
sprouts. a nuisance wholly without
justification in common sense.