HOUSE-TO-HOUSE LAW

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 130, 26 February 1937, Page 6

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE LAW

Canvassing For Shares

APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION

By Telegrapti—Press Association. Invercargill, February 25.

In the Supreme Court to-day, before Mr. Justice Kennedy, Harold Calvert appealed from a conviction by a stipendiary magistrate at Invercargill, Calvert having been lined £2OO on a charge brought by John Albert Colin Mackenzie, of offering shares for subscription. Appellant (Calvert) was represented by Mr. P. B. Cooke. K.C. (Wellington), and Mr. G. V. Murdoch (Dunedin). Mr. 11. J. Macalister appeared for respondent Mackenzie.

Mr. Macalister said the case was an appeal from a conviction entered by a magistrate against appellant on a charge under section 343 of the Companies Act, of having committed a breach of the Act. The offence Charged that defendant went from house to house offering shares for subscription to the public. The information was laid by Mackenzie, executor of the estate of the late W. Fleck. Defendant was employed by a company known as McArthur Trust, Ltd., and induced Fleck and his wife to fake up debentures in the Investment Execu-, five Trust, Ltd. Legislation was passed by which certain companies in which J. W. S. McArthur was interested were ordered to be wound up, the Public Trustee being appointed liquidator. McArthur Trust, Ltd., was registered in' Queensland, and agents were appointed to endeavour to get control of the debenture-holders’ interests. The methods were simple Debenture-holders were canvassed and endeavours made to persuade them to part with their debentures in the Investment Executive Trust in exchange for shares in the McArthur Trust, the debenture-holders being offered more than the face value of the shares. Defendant was one of the agents in the campaign, and was largely successful in inducing debenture-holders to exchange their debentures for shares in the McArthur Trust. He visited houses in doing sb and thus committed a breach of section 243. After several witnesses had been heard, Mr. Cooke, addressing the court, submitted that there were four grounds on which the prosecution could not hope to succeed. They were: (1) There was no evidence of a house-to-house canvass; (2) there was no evidence of any offer; (3) there was no evidence of any offering of shares for subscription;, (4) there was no evidence of any offer to the public. Ou the weight of the evidence produced, he submitted that it was'insufficient to show that the prosecution had discharged the onus which rested on it. The going by Calvert to a total of seven houses''constituted according to 'the prosecution going from house to house. These houses, said counsel, were hundreds of miles apart. Calvert had waited on the debenture-holders with whom he had transacted share business on a number of occasions, yet the prosecution would have the court believe that that was a house-to-house I canvass. He based his submissions on the ordinary meaning of the term. Calling on every alternate house would amount to a house-to-house canvass, but not the waiting on seven or eight persons in an area hundreds of miles in extent. It was a well-known fact that the section under which Calvert was charged had given rise to a great deal of difficulty, and there had been a good deal of comment about it. The hearing was adjourned till tomorrow.