RIVAL INTERESTS

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 218, 10 June 1926, Page 9

RIVAL INTERESTS

WHALING PARTIES’ DISPUTE BY TELEGBAPH.—PB.ESS ASSOCIATION, Blenheim, June 9. Mr. Justice Ostler heard a dispute in the Supreme Court between two whaling parties operating in- Tory Channel and Cook Strait. The plaintiffs were the E. C. Perano whaling party, and the defendant, Joseph August Perano. Plaintiffs’ claim was that their party were associated with the defendant as a whaling party from before 1919 until 1923, when the rest of the party bought out defendant’s interest. The party worked together during the seasons of 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1922, but, about May, 1923, defendant said to the rest of the party the whole of his interest in the party, and in its assets, but had not handed over the party’s books, papers, and documents, and he had also retained in bis own name the license to a slipway used by the party, and a lease to the loud. Further plaintiffs claimed that, on November, 1923, defendant, applied for, and was granted, permission to reclaim a corner of Fishing Bay for the purpose of erecting a whaling station on the opposite side of Tory Channel to that used by the plaintiff party, and that on March' 30, 1926, he had secured a permit to use certain adjacent Crown land as a site for a whaling, factory. The plaintiffs, therefore, claimed that defendant be declared a trustee for them of the license to erect a slipway and be deemed to assign the right to the plaintiffs, together with a lense of the adjacent land; that he be directed to deliver up the party’s books, papers, and documents, and that the Court make a declaration that defendant’s permit to erect a factory is illegal and void, on the grounds that the factory would be within 50 miles of "plaintiffs’ factory contrary to the provisions of section 4 of the Fisheries Amendment Act, and that an injunction be issued restricting defendant from carrying cn a whaling factory on this land.. The defence, os outlined, Was that defendant was prepared to deliver the foreshore license to the plaintiffs on a proper document being presented to him, and he denied that plaintiffs had ever demanded possession of the books and papers, with the, exception of one book, which he had handed cn demand to E. C. Perano. The statement of defence further claimed that defendant’s factory was not within 53 miles of '-ny other 'shore wbstins station Kowaad Fr.

the Governor-in-Council, under the Act, though it was less than 50 miles from the station used by plaintiffs. Mr. Treadwell outlined the facts given above at some length, but when he was dealing with the alleged illegality of the Government permit to erect a factory, His Honour observed that this appeared to be a matter of the Couit construing the statute, and he ruled that the matter could not be argued. As an attack on an Act of the Stare without the Attorney-General being joined to the proceedings. His Honour reserved decision on the points raised, until the maip issue of the case —the matter of an injunction, in which the Attornev-Gene-ral is to bo represented—is decided. The case was adjourned to enable the Attor-ney-General to be heard in Wellington, if ho so desires.