Cut Bank Pioneer Press

IS PUBLIC MARKET A HELP?
Municipal Plans Seem to Have Reached the Overdone Stage.
At this time, when municipal authorities in this country are being importuned to lavish expenditure of the money of the taxpayers in the establishment of public markets, and in the creation of facilities for the handling of merchandising operations, to be utilized by competitors of the regular merchants, without giving adequate return in the way of rentals, the following reply, returned by the lord mayor of Sydney, Australia, to a committee which waited upon him asking the free use of the streets for the sale of fruits, etc., is worthy of consideration, and of commendation:
"It is stated that the project is designed to do away with that bad fellow, the middleman. But if you get down to bedrock, the plain English of the proposition is that the promoters think that by using the streets of Sydney free of charge they will be placed in a favored position, enabling them to compete at a great advantage with those who have to pay rates and carry on within the four walls of a building for the use of which they have to pay a pretty stiff rent. As well might the butter merchant or any other vendor of goods proclaim from the housetops that he could sell at from 15 to 20 per cent cheaper if he were only provided with the facilities rent free."
There is very little doubt that municipal marketing schemes being exploited in this country have reached the overdone stage, representing an outlay of money wrested from the taxpayers from which neither the producer nor the consumer may hope to reap commensurate advantages. The way in which the Australian official portrays the situation might with profit be brought more forcibly to the attention of authorities at home.