POWER SUPPLY.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 68, 22 March 1933, Page 9

POWER SUPPLY.

CLAIM FOR £2083

Tho hearing of legal argument was •continued in;the Supreme Court today in the case of the Hawke's Bay Eleetrie Power Board against Thomas Borthwick and Sons (Australasia), Ltd., an action for £2083 for an alleged breach of an- agreement entered into in 1927 for the supply and r->----beption of. electric power at the company's freezing works at Paki Paki, near Hastings. The works were extensively damaged by tho earthquake in .February; 1931, and were.not rebuilt. . Evidence was heard in Napier early this month by Mr. Justice Blah-, who then adjourned tho case' foi- legal argument.

Mr. ,T. B. C.allan (Bunedin), with Mr. 11. B.Lusk (Napier), appeared for the board, and Mr. H. P. Johnston (Wellington), with Mr. J. Macfarlane Laing (Mastcrton) and Mr. A. C. Jessep (Wellington), for the defendant company. Tho agreement in dispute, was for five years with a guarantee by tho company to 'pay a minimum amount of £1000 -annually t'o tho board. The claim covered the period after the earthquake and until the termination of tho agreement in November, 1932, together with an additional period of six months by way of notice.

The company contended tjiat as a result of the. earthquake the agreement was. frustrated or rendered impossible of performance; that the power board because of damage to its own plant had boen unablo. to supply power for several days after the earthquake, during ivhich time tlio defendant had had to arrange for lighting to handle the frozen meat in the cold stpros; and that, since the earthquake, most of the defendant's stock bought hi Hawke's Bny had boon killed and frozen at two other freezing works near Hastings, rosulting in an increased consumption of power supplied by tho board.