Napier Milk By-law Quashed

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 67, 20 March 1937, Page 2

Napier Milk By-law Quashed

JUDGE RULES AGAINST T.8.-FREE MILK SUPPLY

Prom Our Own Correspondent. NAPIER, March 19. Objections lo certain clauses of the Napier borough milk by-law, the effect of which is to guarantee consumers getting a supply of nontuberculin milk, made by a representative of the dafryinen of the district, have been upheld by Mr Justice Ostler in a reserved decision now to hand. The effect of his judgment is such that the main object of the by-law has been dofeated and the by-law is now practically of little benefit to consumers.

William James McGrath, a dairyman, of Meeanee, brought a motion at the last session of the Supreme Court at Napier urging that certain clauses of the by-law be declared null and void on the grounds that they were ultra vires, repugnant and unreasonable. His Honour heard somewhat lengthy evidence and then reserved his decision.

McGrath was represented by Messrs E. J. W. Hallett and S. H. Morrison, while the Napier Borough Council was represented by Mr H. B. Lusk. After commenting upon the clauses to which objection was taken, his Honour went on to say that in Now Zealand it was estimated that only about 8 per cent of dairy cows roacted to the tuberculin test. There had been suggestions from time to time in the Press that the State should provide for periodical testing of all dairy cows and the destruction of all reactors, paying full compensation for all losses suffered thereby. “As we have nearly two million dairy cows, and such a scheme would result in the destruction of some 150,000 cows,” said his Honour, “tho cost in compensation alone would amount to well over a million pounds, apart from tho large cost of testing and destruction. Seeing that, unless a cow actually has tubercular mastitis—that is, tubercular inflammation of the udder or teats —evon if it is a reactor, its milk is never found to contain the germs of tuberculosis, and that cases of tubercular mastitis are exceedingly rare in New Zealand, it is at least questionable whether the destruction of some 150,000 reactor cows would be worth the great expense involved. “Whether it would is a question for the Government to decide, and so far it has not enacted that all reactors shall be destroyed either with or without compensation. But the by-laws in question provide for the ordinary annual testing of his herd by every dairyman, whether in or out of the borough, who supplies milk to its inhabitants, and the compulsory Segregation and destruction of all reactors at the dairyman’s expense, subject to the uncertain, and in any case the inadequate, compensation provided for in the Stock Act, 1908.”

His Honour did not think that the legislature intended, in enacting the Municipal Corporations Act, 1933, to give to borough councils the power to enact such drastic provisions as the •by-laws objected to —provisions which interefered with private rights in a way in which tho legislature had never ventured to interfere.

“I regret having to declare these by-laws invalid, because their object is praiseworthy,” concluded his Honour. “But before they were passed I think it clear from the evidence of Mr Elphick (Government veterinarian for Hawke’s Bay) and the paper read by Mr C. S. AL Hopkirk, B.V.Sc. (which was put in as evidence and of which h® approved) that Napier, owing to the work of the Government stock department, was already receiving a supply of milk free from the bacteria of bovine tuberculosis, and its inhabitants could drink raw the milk supply without the risk of tubercular infection. 4 ‘Moreover, pasteurisation of the milk has been found to bo a certain method of killing the germs of bovine tuberculosis, and it is always within the power of a borough to provide that no milk shall be sold in the borough unless it has been pasteurised.