HIRE OR REWARD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23599, 7 March 1940, Page 11

HIRE OR REWARD

LEGAL INTERPRETATION GOODS CARRYING LICENCES {BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] BLENHEIM, Wednesday If a contention placed before Mr. Justice Smith in the Supreme Court - to-day is correct, probably many people have in ignorance been infringing the I transport regulations. The point at issue was whether "carrying goods for •hire or reward" meant that any owner of a motor vehicle who carried goods and derived benefit should have a goods service licence.

An extreme example was quoted of j a man taking home firewood from the beach. T.liis, it/ was contended, involved a benefit, and it was further claimed that the word "reward" had been judicially defined as meaning "any benefit." Examples were also quoted of bakers and milkmen carrying their wares and of farmers taking stock to Baleyards, and it was contended that as the law stands at present all these people should 1 have goods service licences. These issues were all linked in an appeal from a decision of Mr. T. E. Maunsell, S.M., in which he convicted Richard William Gill, contractor, of Blenheim, on a charge of carrying on a goods service otherwise than in conformity with the terms of his goods service licence, in that he failed to carry a. vehicle authority on his goods service vehicle. The case was defended in the Magistrate's Court on the ground that no goods licence was necessary, as Gill had been carrying his own goods. The hearing of the appeal occupied all the morning in the Supreme Court. Decision was reserved by Mr. Justice Smith.