RELIEF CLAIMED

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 196, 16 May 1930, Page 13

RELIEF CLAIMED

REMOVAL OF HIDES EMBARGO COMMISSION’S INQUIRY CASE FOR THE CROWN Further consideration was given yesterday by the commission to the petition of Woolston Tanneries Ltd. for relief in respect of income tax paid prior to the lifting of the embargo on the export of hides in 1920. The petition set out that the company had entered into certain arrangements with the Board of Trade for the purpose of keeping down the price of leather and of boots in New Zealand; that the embargo was removed in February, IJ-O, contrary to the advice of the Board of Trade, and the company, -which was then bare of hides, was faced with either closing down its works altogether, which would have meant a substantial loss, or carrying on in pursuance of its arrangements with the Board of Trade and making a greater loss. Mr. Justice Reed is chairman of the commission, and associated with him are Mr. Justice Ostler and Mr. Justice Blair. Mr. A. Gray, K.C., with him Mr. W. N. Matthews, appears for the company, and Mr. P. B. Cooke, with him Mr. C. 11. Taylor, of the Crown Law Office, for the Crown. Case for the Crown.

In opening the case for the Crown, Mr. Cooke submitted that' few things were more material in considering the existence or validity of a claim based on fairness and good conscience than an investigation into the question as to how and when it was originally expressed. One of the badges of a claim that deserved recognition on those grounds was, he contended, the expression of it in a more or less intelligible form at the first reasonable opportunity, not after there had been time and opportunity to consider whether there was a complaint and, if so, what it was. If their Honours were content to adopt his submission' and were content to apply those considerations, as he submitted they must, to the present ease, then they would expect to find three things: (1) A more or less coherent, and definite statement’of the grounds or basis of the claim; (2) that such statement was made nt the first reasonable opportunity; (3) that the ground or basis in the statement was adhered to throughout the many proceedings in which the claim had been pressed.

Mr. Cooke ' said ■he did not want to fasten on to any particular word or to take advantage of any trifling technicality for the purpose of criticising any particular expression of the claim, but he did. submit that what their Honours had to look for to test the moral right of the petitioners for relief was a reason-ably-Carly formulation of the complaint and consistency. Counsel submitted that by alterations of. attitude, by. changes of front, by a departure from early and spontaneous expressions of complaint, the company had shown on its own evidence that its lack of consistency alone must necessarily be a fatal answer to the moral claim it formulated. Grounds of Complaint. There were four grounds of complaint quite specifically stated in. the petition, continued Mr. Cooke. They were: (1) The failure to give. the company opportunity to set aside reserves; (2) the removal of the embargo per se; (3) the request to carry on in some form or other; and (4) the request to quote firm for three months. Those substantially were the grounds upon which the complaint was based, and nothing could be clearer than the lines of demarcation between those grounds in Sir John Hosking’s report, although he had drawn attention, and properly so, to the fact that the last two were confused a- good deal. The first appearance of the claim was in July, 1921, when Mr. Ollivier addressed a letter to the chairman of the Board of Trade. Looking at that letter there was not a shadow of-a suggestion about either' the request to carry on or the request to quote firm, nor was there any suggestion in connection with the failure to provide reserves or ,the removal of the embargo that was in the least degree peculiar to the petitioners. The next claim was made in a letter to Sir Francis Bell in September, 1921, but counsel submitted the commission would find nothing in it which hinted at the last, two grounds and nothing specific about the first two. The third statement of claim was made in July, 1922. when Mr. Ollivier wrote to the Prime Minister “reducing his proposals to concrete form.” That, was a somewhat important document, said Mr. Cooke, but he would submit that the commission would not find in if: a hint of anything of the four grounds of complaint. Heavy Txrascet. Mr. Justic Ostler: Of course Mr. Ollivier’s answer to that is that in 1922 he did not know the extent of his losses. He did not know them until 1923. Mr. Cooke: I submit there are several answers to that. He said yesterday that he knew,then his losses were £30,000 under this head. Mr. Justice Ostler : Well, he gave evidence before the M to Z committee in 1923, and when it was put to him that his' losses were £25,000, he said they would be probablj- three times,-that. Mr. Cooke said that the whole of Mr. Ollivier’s evidence showed that he knew. He did not suggest that Mr. Ollivier could tell to a penny what his losses were, or could do so' to-day, but he did suggest that Mr. Ollivier knew they were substantial and serious, and that the claim for £6OOO on which he was then still laying great stress, was insignificant in comparison with the losses he must suffer. Again, as to his complaint which was hinted at before that, that he would not be able to provide reserves, why would he have made, the complaint if he did not know why he wanted them? Continuing-, Mr. Cooke said that the whole trend or burden of Mr. Ollivier’s evidence was that he must have appreciated the general position in 1920. But the thing did not end there, because, although in 1922 Mr. Ollivier said he was stating his proposals in concrete form, there was no reference to the four grounds. Referring to the petition presented in July, 1923, Mr. Cooke submitted that in the opening speech made by the company's counsel what was at the most a passing reference only was made to the last ground. The Crown could not help drawing an inference from the fact that' the real claim was treated with such scant consideration on that occasion. The small, or comparatively small, amount of importance that was attached in 1923 to the last two grounds could be seen from the comparatively few references in the M to Z proceedings to either of those grounds. Public Money. Mr. Cooke referred to the proceedings before the joint committee of both Houses in 1924. at which the company declined to be represented. In bis report, Sir John Hosking had set out an extract from the company’s statement of protest, and had commented ns follows:—"Here again it will be observed the claim is not put: upon a request to curry on or quit after the embargo, or upon the loss in consequence of reliance on the Government to 'stand by’ the company or ‘see it through.’ Tlie company puts its claim upon the grounds of its having so acted in conjunction with the Board of Trade before the removal of the embargo as not to have been able to protect itself by making additional reserves, and thus rendering it inequitable for the Government to have removed the embargo.” It was not until Sir John Hosking dealt with the matter that there was any obtrusion of the last two grounds. Mr. Cooke said the company had to show that the fact that it did what it had done gave it a right to ask for public money; and that there was a contemporaneous arrangement or understanding that: if it. suffered loss the public would pay for it. The commission adjourned until this morning.