WHALING RIGHTS

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 14

WHALING RIGHTS

DISPUTE BEFORE COURT [Per United Press Association.] BLENHEIM, June 9. Mr Justice Ostler hoard a dispute in the Supreme Court between whaling parties operating in Tory Channel and Cook Strait. The plaintiffs were the E. C. Perano Whaling Party, and the defendant Joseph August Perano. The plaintiffs’ claim was that their party was associated with 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 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1922, but about Mar, 1923, defendant sold to the rest of the party the whole of his interests in the concern, and in its assets, but had not handed over the party’s books, papers, and documents, and he also retained in liis own name the license to the slipway used by the party and the lease to the land. 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 plaintiffs’ party, and on March 30, 1926, ho had secured a permit to use certain adjacent Crown land as a site for a whaling factory. The plaintiffs, therefore, asked that defendant be declared a trustee for them of the license to erect a slipway, and be deemed to assign the right to plaintiffs, together with the lease of the adjacent land. It was further asked that he be directed to deliver up the party’s books, papers, aid documents, and that the court make a declaration that defendant’s permit to erect a factory was illegal and void on the grounds that the factory would be within fifty miles of the plaintiff’s factor};, which was contrary to the provisions of section 4 of the Fisheries Amendment Act. It was finally asked that an injunction bo issued restricting defendant from carrying on a whaling factory on this land.

The defence, as outlined, was that defendant was prepared to deliver the foreshore license to plaintiffs on the proper document being presented to him. He denied that plaintiffs had over demanded possession of books and papers, with the exception of one book which ho had handed on demand to H. C. Eerano. The statement of the defence. further claimed that defendant’s factory was not within fifty miles of any other shore whaling station licensed by the Governor-in-Council under the Act, though it was leas than fifty 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 pi the Government permit to erect a factory His Honor observed that this appeared to be a matter of the court construing the Statute, and he ruled that the matter could not be argued, as, an attack on an Act of the State could not bo made without the Attor-ney-General being joined to the proceedings. His Honor reserved his decision on the points raised until the main issue of the case—the matter'of an injunction in which the AttorneyGeneral is to bo represented—is decided. • The case was adjourned to enable the Attorney-General to be heard in Wellington, if ho so desires.