FARMERS FINED

Evening Star, Issue 25770, 17 April 1946, Page 8

FARMERS FINED

When a reserved judgment was given by Mr H. W. Bundle, S. M., in the Police Court yesterday on charges of failure to comply with a direction given under the Primary Industries Emergency Regulations, 1939, that they should supply to a creamery not prohibited from receiving milk, two Owaka farmers, Robert William Falconer and Lake Copin Falconer, were each fined £2 10s and costs (£1 17s 6d). The magistrate gave his opinion that on the facts before the court, insistence on the order being carried out by defendants would create a real hardship on them. He was at a loss to understand the reason for the direction, but the court did not have the facts and figures .which no doubt had influenced the controller in coming to his decision that the order should apply to the defendants and that no exception should be made in their case. This was .not an instance of flouting of the regulations, he added. The defendants were of the opinion that for the efficient and economic working of their farm, their milk should go to a cheese factory. " Apparently all the facts were considered, however" said the Magistrate, " and this court is not a tribunal for appeal against the controller's decision."