HIRE-PURCHASE IMPLEMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 278, 21 November 1913, Page 6

HIRE-PURCHASE IMPLEMENTS.

A TEST CASE. Further evidence was heard in the Supreme Court, before his Honor Mr. Justice Cooper, yesterday afternoon, in the case Booth, Macdonald find Co- (Dr. H. D. Bamford) v. the Official Assignee (Mr. Selwyn Mays), in which the plaintiffs claimed the value of some agricultural implements which had been ordered from them under the hire-pur-chase system, and nere afterwards seized by the Official Assignee as assets in a bankrupt cnate. Taey sought to prove that the liire-purc'uist , system was so well known in relatio-.i in implements that there was no "reputation of ownership" by the bankrupt. Frederick W. Jones, managing director for New Zealand for the International Harvester Company, Limited, produced a return of the cash and hircpurchase transactions of his firm from 1909 onwards, showing that while the number of cash transactions was much in excess, the total value of the hirepurchase business was far the greater. AH credit transactions were put on a hire-purchase basis. Many of his firm's country agent 3 were blacksmiths, and the banks handled the promissory notes used under the hire-purchase system. .Moreover, the firm's travellers made no attempt to conceal its methods of doing business with ihe farmers, and for these reasons ho believed that the hire-pur-chase system was commonly known to the farmers' creditors. In support of his contention that the hire-purchase system was well known in the country towns, plaintiff's counsel called sixteen other witnesses, including William (Joodfellow, managing director of the Waikato Co-operative Dairy Company, and a number of business men from Pukekohe, Te Aroha, Thames. Hamilton, Jlorrinsville, Te Kuiti, and elsewhere. All <-tnW that it was common knowledge that implements were bought on the hire-purchase system, and that they might bo the property of the vendors, not t>! the farmer, if he had not paid all the purchase-money. The case was adjourned to this afternoon, Mr Mays stating that he had about fifteen witnesses to call.