SPRINGBOKS’ TOUR

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22243, 6 November 1937, Page 9

SPRINGBOKS’ TOUR

ECHO HEARD IN COURT

RESERVED JUDGMENT GIVEN

(PXZ39 ASSOCIATION TXLXOBAV.) WELLINGTON, November 5. A poipt of considerable interest to printers has been decided by Mr J. H- Luxford, S.M., in a reserved judgment delivered to-day in which he held that a certain publication dealing with the tour of the South African Rugby team could not be defined as a programme. A prosecution was brought by the police against Roy Wynle Stewart, manager of the printing firm of Stewart, Lawrence, and Company, Ltd., Wellington, who was charged with printing an unauthorised programme. At the hearing, DetectiveSergeant P, Doyle prosecuted, and Mr A. B. Sievwright appeared for Stew‘‘A document designated ‘Souvenir magazine of the South African New Zealand tour of 1937.’ was printed by the defendant and distributed for sale in Napier on the day of the South Africa-Hawke’s Bay football match,” said the Magistrate in his written judgment, “The prosecution alleges that the document purports to be a programme of the match, and that the defendant thereby committed a breach of the Police Offences Act. 1927. Section 37 prohibits the printing of any document purporting to be a programme of (inter alia) football matches,’ without an express licence in that behalf from the person or association of persons having the management or control thereof. “The document does not purport to be a programme at all. It is in every sense a descriptive magazine or brochure as indicated by its title. *lll6 prosecution, however, contends that the inclusion of the names of the players, from whom the two teams for the match in question were to be Jielected, brings the booklet within the meaning of a programme, and further, that it would be bought only as such. The word programme is in every-day use, and means a written or printed list of pieces, items, or numbers of a concert or other public entertainment in the order of performance. . “The document now before the Court does no more than include the names of 29 South African and 19 Hawke s Bay players from whom the teams would be chosen. It gives no information of the date of the match or of the time of the commencement. Viewing the document as a whole, I have cwne to the conclusion that it is a bona fide record of the South African tour, of New Zealand and nothing else. A similar reference to the players from whom the teams would be chosen was probably made in every daily newspaper published in New Zealand on tile morning of the match.