SALE OF SILVER BEECH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24826, 28 January 1942, Page 6

SALE OF SILVER BEECH

ILLEGAL TRANSACTIONS COMPANY’S OFFENCES Mr R. C. Abernethy, S.M., has given judgment in the action brought by the Conservator of Forests against Andrew Sharpe and Co., Ltd. The defendant company was charged with three breaches of War Regulations contained in certain provisions of the Southland and Otago Beech Marketing Notice. The company was charged (1) with, on June 11, 1941, at Tawanui, selling 3095 super feet of silver beech to a Christchurch firm other than through the agency of the Co-operative Beech Company, contrary to the forms of the statute in such case made and provided. (2) With, on October 9, 1941, selling 2001 super feet of silver beech to another Christchurch firm in similar circumstances, and with selling 2213 super feet to a Christchurch firm without the previous permission in writing of the Timber Controller. Counsel for the defendant at the conclusion of the hearing of the first information, admitted the facts alleged in the three informations, but denied that they constituted breaches of the relevant provisions of the marketing notice and its amendment or the regulations and Acts upon which they were founded.

The three informations were based, the magistrate said in his judgment, which covered 14 typewritten pages, upon three instances of the defendant company’s alleged defiance, of the. prescribed control though the managing director of the defendant company, Mr John R. Wilson, had frankly admitted that, from motives purely of self-interest the defendant company from the beginning had never any intention of complying with the marketing notice, unless and until compelled to do so. The judgment deals with the manner in which the Co-operative Beech Company was set up. This company purchased from the miller at list prices, less varying percentages approximating 20 per cent, for agents’ commission and 6 per cent, levy for the company’s expenses, followed by a sale to a buyer from the company and the sawmiller’s mill. Mr F. B. Adams, for the defence, had held that the Cooperative Beech Company was simply selling its own timber, which had come to it not as an agent, but as a straight-out buyer, and that such a pooling system was ultra vires. The magistrate held that there was insufficient proof of the validity of clause 3 of the marketing notice upon which to convict the defendant on the first information, and he dismissed it. The defendant was convicted on the second information and fined £6, and also convicted on the third information and fined £6.

At the hearing at Invercargill Mr F. B. Adams appeared for Andrew Sharpe, Ltd., and Mr H. J. Macalister for the Conservator of Forests.