FLOOD OF RED TAPE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17236, 16 April 1930, Page 2

FLOOD OF RED TAPE

JUDGE’& PROTEST j STRANGLING NATION’S LIRE LONDON, Feb. 22. A protest against the stream of regulations issued from Whitehall was made by Air. Justice McCardie at Essex Assizes yesterday when the PostmasterGeneral * claimed damages from Mr. ■ Alfred William Larkin, garage proprietor, of Margaretting, Essex, for alleged negligence. Mr. Cecil Whiteley, K.C. for the Post-master-General, said the action arose out of a tire at the garage of Air. Larkin which melted overhead telegraph wires running past the garage. Twenty-three poles had to be reset and the damage was £IOO. It. was alleged that the tire was caused by a boy using petrol to clean the engine of a motor-car. Mr. Oswald D. Robinson, of the Post Office Engineering Department, said that 59 telegraph wires passed over the garage. Air. Whiteley : Why were those wires put over the garage?—We had no choice; we had to keep the lines on the public road. Mr. Justice McCardie: Had the garage proprietor any power to object to the wires going "over his premises?—l do not thiuk he hack

A witness called for the defence said it was usual to clean car engines with petrol. Air. Justice AlcCardie: Do you deliberately break the regulations?—What regulations? (Laughter). I did not know of them.

Air. Justice AlcCardie, in summing up, said : “This nation is overwhelmed with regulations. There is a never-ceasing Hood of them, drawn up by complacent officials; regulations so inrttimerabie and complex that no one can grasp them; regulations which if continued at this pace will soon begin to strangle both the industrial and the social life of this country. The jury failed to agree and the case will lie retried.