LIBEL CLAIM

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24270, 30 May 1944, Page 6

LIBEL CLAIM

ACTION AGAINST “ OBSERVER ” (P.A.) AUCKLAND. May 29. The hearing of a claim against the “Observer” for £IOOO damages for alleged libel began before Mr Justice Callan and a jury this afternoon, the plaintiff being Marathon Rubber Footwear. Ltd., for whom Mr North was counsel. The defendants, Geddis and Blomfield, Ltd,, were represented by Mr H. P. Richmond. The plaintiff claimed that by publication of a statement in the “Observer” on August 18 last year, the reputation and credit of the company were injured and held up to public scandal and contempt by suggesting that the company, in concert or collusion with a department of State or officers of the department, exerted an improper influence on the Government or its officers, to obtain an undue profit lo the detriment of the public, by a monopoly, concession, or other undue advantage in the manufacture and sale of gumboots. The statement read: “While a southern enterprise, under the patronage of the Department of Industries and Commerce, is pushing ahead at top speed with arrangements for the manufacture of gumboots, the announcement comes from America that by October the United States production of synthetic rubber will have reached 750,000 tons per annum. This approximates to the pre-war consumption. of rubber in the States for all purposes. It also means that American rubber boots will shortly become freely available, and (please mark this particularly) that a first-class political ramp will be engineered for the purpose of excluding from the New Zealand market a tested, efficient, imnorted article, while users of rubber boots will be compelled to buy the highly priced local article of almost certainly inferior quality. The closer the approach of a supply from outside sources the more furious becomes the pace to gel the local article on the market before it arrives.” The plaintiff claimed it was the only southern firm in New Zealand engaged in the manufacture, or preparation for manufacture, of gumboots, and that the article complained of referred to the plaintiff and was so intended. The hearing of evidence was commenced before the hearing was adjourned until to-morrow.