1454 VETOES.

this will remove much of the complaint relative to the trans-
fer of licenses when new cars are bought in the counties during
the year.

April 11, 1929.
(Chapter 497, Senate Bill 302)

PROVIDING FOR THE REGULATION or COMMISSION MERCHANTS
DEALING IN FARM PRODUCTS.

Subject to certain exceptions, this bill applies generally to
commission merchants who deal in farm products, such as
vegetables, fruits, live stock, meats, marine food products, poul-
try, eggs, dairy products, wool, hides, tobacco, etc. It requires
such commission merchants to secure a license, give bond for
honest accounting and payments and submit their business and
transactions to the supervision and regulation of the State
Board of Agriculture or its agents or representatives.

The occasion for the bill appears to arise from the fact that
in accounting for the proceeds of sales of the produce in ques-
tion the commission merchants do not render any statement
of the specific sales made or of the parties to whom the produce
is sold. The commission merchants say that this cannot be
done in the ease of the produce covered by the bill, which is
largely perishable. However this may be, and whether justly
or unjustly, the fact that no such statements are rendered has
created a feeling of distrust in the minds of the farmers, who
feel that they frequently do not receive a correct accounting
for their produce.

I would not hesitate to sign a bill requiring commission
merchants to render whatever statements might be necessary
and practicable to show that their accountings to the farmers
are correct, but the present bill is so far-reaching in the au-
thority it confers and so paternalistic in character that I do
not feel justified in giving it my approval.

In addition to requiring a license and a bond, to which the
commission merchants advise me they do not object, the bill
authorizes the State Board of Agriculture, or any agent or rep-
resentative it may select, irrespective of whether any complaint
has been filed or not, to investigate all the books and all the
business transactions of all the commission merchants covered
by the act, and to revoke licenses whenever the Board, or its