"Tote" Dividend.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20290, 27 April 1934, Page 6

"Tote" Dividend.

Newspaper's Breach of Law. Per Press Association. ROTORUA, April 26 CASE with an interesting bearing on the question of the publication of dividends came before the Magistrate's Court to-day. when two charges against the ” Rotorua Morning Post ” of publishing figures from which dividends paid on two rsces at the Rotorua Racing Club’s annual meeting in February could be computed was heard. Edward Grace Guy, as the publisher of the newspaper, was the person against whom the prosecution was laid, but after hearing evidence, the Magistrate (Mr S. L. Patterson, S.M.) stated that he considered that a conviction, which would debar defendant from entering racecourses, was too severe a penalty to impose under the circumstances. He accordingly dismissed the two informations under Section 92 of the Justices of the Peace Act, making an order that defendant should pay into the public fund the sum of 30s in each case in order to reimburse the police for expenses incurred. The police called evidence to show that the newspaper had published the total on the machine in the Tourist Handicap run at Rotorua on February 10 and in the Rennie Stakes run on February 12, together with the total money invested on each of ‘the three placed horses. It was contended that it was possible, from these figures, to compute the dividends paid on the races in question. Defendant set up in defence that he had been in ignorance of the nature of the report and that if the information did infringe the terms of the Act. the breach h2d been committed with no deliberate intent. Evidence was given by the editor of the newspaper, Edmund Webber, who said that in the absence of a regular sporting writer, he had reported the meeting and had not realised that it was possible to compute dividends from the figures given. It was mentioned in the course of evidence that the last prosecution under this section had been in 1925. when a Wellington daily had been convicted for stating that a dividend paid on a certain horse “ was just over a score ” and that a conviction had raised a storm of protest throughout the newspapers of New Zealand. Geoffrey Weir, deputy-inspector of totalisators. produced the dividend figures in relation to. the meeting, but under crossexamination admitted that it w r ould be very difficult for the members of the public to compute dividends from figures unless aware of the percentage deductions. The Magistrate held that the publisher, as the person whose name appeared on the imprint of the newspaper, must accept full responsibility for the contents of the publication. There was no doubt, he said, that a breach had been committed, but he considered that a conviction which would debar defendant from entering racecourses was too severe under the circumstances. He accordingly' dismissed the information, making the order in regard to costs already mentioned.