IS IT A FACTORY?

Evening Star, Issue 23145, 20 December 1938, Page 15

IS IT A FACTORY?

PREMISES FOR BOTTLING MILK [Per United Press Association.] NEW PLYMOUTH, December 19. Whether premises for the bottling of milk for delivery constitute a factory under the Factories Act was the point at issue in the New Plymouth Court to-day. It was stated during the hearing that the point had not before been raised in New Zealand. The magistrate, Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., reserved his decision. The City Dairy Ltd. was charged that, being the occupier of a factory within the meaning of the Factories Act, it employed a boy under 16 without having obtained a permit, and that it employed a boy under 16 before 8 a.m. A further charge was that, being the occupier of a shop within the meaning of the Shops and Offices Act. the firm employed a boy under 16 as a shop assistant before 7 a.m. For the Labour Department, Mr F. Wilson submitted that a factory was any place in which one or more persons were employed directly or indirectly in any handcraft or in preparing or manufacturing goods for trade or sale. He claimed that the measurement of the milk into the bottles was a necessary part of the preparation for sale. Mr F. S. Grayling, for the defence, claimed that the bottling was not to make the delivery easier, but for health reasons. Preparing or manufacturing goods meant, he contended, the treatment of goods that altered their character or condition so ns to render them better for trade or sale.