SUPREME COURT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13834, 20 February 1909, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Feb. 19. Action was begun .at the Supreme Court to-day, whereby . John 'Stallworthy, M.P., publisher of the "Wairoa. Bell" sought to recover' £IOO damages from Francis Augustus Jones, in respect of an alleged libellous publication in the newspaper " The North Auckland Times'' last September. 1 In setting forth the statement of claim l)r Bamford said it was alleged that in September last a. certain publication appeared in the "North Auckland Times" exceedingly damaging to "The Wairoa Bell." The publication was a certain letter signed "F: J.; Dargaville" and accusing the " Wairoa Be.U" of containing wilfully misleading,' untruthful and biassed reports of the proceedings of the . Hobson County Council. The case stands' partly lizard.

PALMERSTONN., Feb. 19. At the Supreme Court Albert Robert Musgrove and Albert Thompson, trading as stock-dealers,. were sentenced; to imprisonment for breaches of the Bankruptcy Act, Mtisgrovo receiving four months and Thompson, who was found guilty oil one count only, to two months. WELLINGTON, Feb. 19. A question of liability to taxation was decided by Mr' Justice Cooper today in a. judgment on the case of the Heath Estate v. The Commissioner of Taxes. The point at issue was whether sections 10 and 26 of the Land and Income Assessment Act, 1907, were retrospective and applied only to transactions that might appear an evasjon of the provisions of the Act! His Honour held that the legislature intended the Act to apply to past transactions within a period of five years before the passing of the Act, where possession had not been given, arid at -least 15 per cent, of the • purchase money paid before the 31st March, 1907. The vendor remained the owner of the land if possession had not been given and,the purchase money had' not been paid then. Even though a conveyance might actually have -been executed and the vendor might thus have divested himself of any legal estate in the land, he was still deemed to be the "owner" within the meaning of- the Act. His Honour, therefore, deemed the transaction in the present 'vise to be the .express words of the statute. The amount payable by the plaintiffs in assessment wiis £1069 9s lid, demanded by the commissioner. The plaintiffs were not entitled to any deductions.