MAORI FINED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 210, 6 September 1938, Page 11

MAORI FINED.

LIQUOR PROCURED. ORDERED IN SETTLER'S NAME(From Our Own Correspondent.). :.- KAWHIA, Monday./ A complaint by a Kawhia district settler that Maoris had been ordering liquor in his name, without authority, prosecutions at* the Kawhia Cwarfc. C. Pikia was charged with procuring liquor contrary to the Licensing Act, and he was fined £2, pins the costs of the prosecution. •The story told by the police, for whom Mr. T. Kelly appeared, was that' on the morning oft Saturday, May Si; Pikia -telephoned the Te. Awamntu Hotel, using the name of a Kawhia" settler, and asking that a fivegallon keg be sent out by service car. The liquor arrived at the destination, the junction of one, of thje by-roads, and was left there "by the service car driver for the settler to uplift. Pikia and a party, however, took it to a football match, where the liquor was consumed. On June 11the same? ruse was adopted, and this time the liquor reached a Maori settlement while a tangi was in progress. Pikia admitted the facts. service car driver, H. Meredith, was then charged with being a party to the offence, but Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., after hearing argument, dismissed the charges. The next defendant was E. H. Cucksey, licensee of the Te Awamutu Hotel, for whom pleas of not guilty were' entered. Constable J. Forsyth said he Interviewed Cucksey on August 2, and defendant admitted a keg had been sent on May 21, and the usual notification made to the clerk of the Court. He could not say who had actually received the order on June 11, but believed it would be one of his staff. The entry in the order book for the May keg was made by a barman then in his employ. The person believed to be ordering the liquor was not unknown at the hotel, and had previously ordered liquor. No actual order form could, however, he located. After legal argument, the magistrate reserved his decision.