"If the taxpayers want protection let them pay for it," was the burden of the argument advanced by a committee from the Retail Grocers' association yesterday afternoon before the committee on streets of the board of alderman in support of an ordinance doing away with the fee system in the [matter] of testing weights and measures.

Under a state law all weights and measures used by any grocer or dealer in any commodity must be tested by an official at frequent intervals, and for this service a fee of 5 cents per measure or weight is collected. Several weeks ago the Grocers' association caused to be introduced in the council an ordinance eliminting this fee and placing the weighmaster on a salary basis, and the presence of a committee yesterday was for the purpose of furthering it. Secretary Fred Mason headed the delegation and finally secured from the committee its promise to report favorably on the measure.

The marketmaster is the official sealer of weights and measures, and the ordinance proposes to give him an addition of $100 a year in lieu of the fees. There is some question as to whether $100 would be sufficient compensation to test all the weights and measures in the city, and the ordinance may be defeated on that ground.