FERTILISER CONTROL

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24761, 8 December 1943, Page 2

FERTILISER CONTROL

THE FIRST PROSECIJTIONS FINES OF £6O IN ONE CASE (0.C.) EOTORUA, Tuesday Appearing before Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., at Rotorua to-day, George Thomas Lodge and Selwyn Douglas Russell were charged with breaches of the fertiliser control, order by acquiring from a Hamilton firm amounts of fertiliser in excess of that allowed by the order. It was the first case of this kind to be heard in New Zealand; Lodge pleaded guilty to a charge of purchasing or acquiring 10 tons of blood and bone on or about April 8 otherwise than in accordance with the fertiliser control order, and on April 14 acquiring 20 tons of the fertiliser. Russell nleaded guilty to acquiring 10 tons of blood ana bone on April 27.

Mr. W. H. Gillies, of Hamilton, prosecuted on behalf of the Department of Agriculture. The magistrate said that the defendants were liable to a fine of £IOO or 12 months' imprisonment or both, but as this was the first case of its kind he was loth to impose a term of imprisonment. Although a false declaration had been made by Lodge he would be fined £2O and costs on the first charge and £4O and casts on the second. Russell, who had acquired 10 tons from Lodsre,_ was fined £lO, "This prosecution "should hare a salutary effect and act as a deterrent to others," commented the magistrate.