THE PRIVY COUNCIL JUDGMENT

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 79

THE PRIVY COUNCIL JUDGMENT

(Feoii Oxjk Own" Coeeesfoxdevi.)

LONDON, May 14.

This morning judgment was pronounced by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the New Zealand appeal of Smith versus M'Arrhur and others, the question being whether the appellant was entitled to a writ of mandamus to the respondents, a licensing committee, to grant a renewal of his license, tinder the Licensing Acts of New Zealand.

The case, it will be recollected, arose in +he district of Newtown, Wellington, New Zealand. Here, through an irregularity in taking the licensing poll, the Licnsing Committee held that it had no jurisdiction to hear applications for a renewal of lieenc-es in the district, and by a majority the Court of Appeal confiimed the Aiew taken by the committee. At the licensing poll held previous to the one at which there was irregularity the vote was that licenses should continue.

In giving judgment to-day, Lord Lmdicv reviewed the facts, which are well kno\ui in New Zealand. He then passed on to deal with the -various acts relating to the question, and proceeded to say that the difficulty aro.se mainly as to the true construction of the act of 1895. There was, however, in New Zealand a statute caded "Tho Statutory Interpetration Act, 1888. By section 4 of that act words importing the pingu'ar number had also to be taken to include the plural, and other legislation of a like character provided that "fair, large, and liberal interpretation " had to be given to acts of Parliament. Tho act directly offectina the case evidently assumed thai, a