A REFUND OF DUTY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 148, 19 December 1907, Page 8

A REFUND OF DUTY.

«. DECISION AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. [BI TXIEGSAPn. — rBESS ASSOCIATION.] , AUCKLAND, 18th December. A case of considerable interest to gold mining cohipanies cajne on in Iho Supremo Court tn-day when the Waihi Gold Mining Company proccede I under the Customs Laws Consolidation Act, 1882, against the Collector of Customs Tho question which his Honour was asked to determine was whether certain articles imported by the plaintiff company are liable to any, and if so what, duty. The articles in disputo comprised shafting, couplings, pedestals, wrought iron belt, pulley and clutch for driving the tube mills by a gas engine. In opening the case for the plaintiff, Mr. Cotter said the defendant- claimed that tho machinery was liable to a duty of 20 por cent, ad valorem within tho meaning of the expression "Manufactures not otherwise enumerated." Mr. Cotter quoted authorities in which mining machinery was defined as "all mechanical appliances of whatever kind used for mining purposes." Mining purposes, ho contended, meant mining for gold and any other melal or mineral, and included stacking, storing, and treatment of any substance supposed to contain gold or any other metal or mineral. Tho question for his Honour to decide was whether tho articles in question were mining machinery. The other side might contend that it was not machinery at all. Mr. Tole, in. reply to his Honour, contended that it was not machinery at all in any eenso for effecting any complete purpose. He submitted that it was only a mechanical appliance for transmitting power. They were parts of machinery that could bo applied to any other industry. They wished to confine the exemption of duty under the. Act to that part of tho machinery which was purely applicable to tho extraction of gold. Tho gas engine was the power and the connecting shaft wai the intermediatory power. After lengthy legal argument his Honour held thai plaintiff was entitled to succeed, and in his Honour's opinion no duty was pajablo in" respect of thp articles mentioned in the atatement of claim. The judgment of the Court was that the Government refund the deposit with interest at 8 per ceut., and costs oa the lowest scalo.