IMPRESSED RIFLES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21353, 14 March 1944, Page 4

IMPRESSED RIFLES

COMPENSATION CLAIMS BASIS OF VALUATIONS The prices of returning or accounting for rifles impressed during the period of extreme urgency following the entry of Japan into the war is bringing to light a number of claims for compensation from owners. A proportions of these claims are based on replacement value, and in some instances on the sentimental value attached to rifles held for many years by their former owners. Not all the rifles are available for return, as some were used in experimental work by the army and others were irreparably damaged or lpst. Claims for compensation in respect of these are, in some cases, ruled as exseccive. The attention of claimants is now being drawn to the terms on which the weapons were taken over during the emergency. One of the conditions was that if any firearm taken on loan was not returned, the owner should be compensated to the value of the weapon at the time it was delivered to the army. For the purpose of assessing compensation, the value of the firearm at, time of delivery to the army is deemed not to exceed, the price originally paid for it by the owner, less a reasonable sum for depreciation: or a sum that would be paid by a willing buyer to a willing seller under normal conditions. Staff officers handling the claims are instructed by army headquarters to treat them with the utmost fairmess, but to advise claimants that values based on replacement of the firearms or sentimental values cannot be considered.