FAILURE OF CLAIM.

Wairarapa Age, 9 October 1936, Page 3

FAILURE OF CLAIM.

ACTION AGAINST DEMOCRAT PARTY. MAGISTRATE’S DECISION. ORGANISER’S CONTRACT NOT ENFORCEABLE. AUCKLAND, October 8. Judgment for the defendants was given by Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., today in the case in which H. C. Baulf, Auckland organiser for the Democrat political party, claimed against William Goodfellow, J. B. Donald, A. E. Davy, Spencer Clark, and T. C. A. I- Hislop for £195, wages alleged to be due. The question of costs was reserved. The Magistrate concluded: “I think that Baulf’s services, at any rate after the nomination of candidates, did constitute an illegal practice and that he is therefore at law precluded from enforcing his contract.” After tracing the formation of the Democrat Party, the Magistrate said the plaintiff was first told of the new party by the defendant Davy. They had worked together organising and supporting two other political parties in promoting one of which they had suffered financial disappointment. “They were therefore,” said the Magistrate, “ both concerned as political soldiers of fortune as to the soundness of the arrangement for providing party funds.” It was at first suggested .to the plaintiff that he might be appointed organiser at £lO weekly and expenses. “I think he gained the impression that he was to be a weekly servant and that his work was likely to last until a month after the election,” said the Magistrate. “There was a subsequent interview in October, 1934, when he was shown an agreement and his wages were fixed by Davy at £6 weekly and expenses. At about the same time the plaintiff discussed the matter with the defendant Goodfellow, who confirmed the statement that he was providing the money to finance the concern in its early stages, and intended collecting from others. He and the plaintiff subsequently chose office premises for the party.” PAYMENTS TO PLAINTHT.

The Magistrate said the party seemed to have come into being on October 29, 1934, when Goodfellow, Davy, Baulf, and eight others formed themselves into an Auckland executive committee. The plaintiff was present at many meetings and therefore had a full knowledge of the treasurer’s reports. He began work on October 22. He was paid by Davy, for one week and was paid two cheques by Goodfellow, one for £l6 13s 4d on October 31, two days after the formation, of the party, and the other for £l6 on. November 28, 1934. The party also paid all moneys owing to him with fair regularity until the middle of January, 1935. The Magistrate outlined the difference which occurred between Goodfellow and Davy, the former reducing his contributions. The position became so strained that in July Goodfellow endeavoured unsuccessfully to have Davy removed from the Dominion executive, and although he associated himself with the party until August 19 he said he did so only to try to “salvage” it. LOST WITH ALL HANDS. “His metaphor is apt,” said the Magistrate. “I think he thought there was a danger of shipwreck and the crew had mutinied. Finally he decided his saTest place was ashore and on August 19 he resigned from the party. On the morning of November 28 the ship was posted as missing with the loss, politically, of all hands.” The Magistrate added that the evidence led him to suppose the plaintiff went into the venture in an unduly confident and perhaps speculative frame of mind, and the notion that the party funds would be large and his position secure. “I do not think he intended to look to either of the defendants, Davy or Goodfellow, personally for payment. Certainly during the first eight or nine months he knew nothing of Donald, Hislop, or Clark as his employers, for they were not associated with the party until the middle of 1935. He says repeatedly that he expected to be paid out of party funds to be controlled by the Dominion executive. I am not prepared to accept the plaintiff’s story of a personal, verbal promise by Donald to pay the plaintiff’s debt himself. I think that Donald, who seems to have treated his rather penurious relative with generosity in times of stress, has told me the true version.”

The Magistrate said that the plaintiff was clearly a man with no sense of loyalty or sincerity. Correspondence showed that he and Davy within a few months of the end of the Democrat Party made unsuccessful overtures to enlirt in the services of the party to whose defeat, they had in a measure contributed. The course of the transaction between the parties-showed that they never intended to vary the .source of payment by imposing any personal responsibilities. He was not called upon to decide the issue as to whether the defendants Davy and Hislop held moneys on behalf of the party. It might be that the plaintiff had a re’medy against those moneys (if any) in an appropriate action. The defendant Hislop’s statement remained uncontradicted that £lOOO of the money received by him was expressly stipulated as being to recompense him for any personal loss ho might suffer. While it was regrettable that the plaintiff’s debt remained unpaid, it would be wrong that any of the defendants, some of whom had lost heavily, should have to pay money for which it was never intended they should be responsible. Baulf announced this afternoon his intention of appeal to the Supreme

Court and that his solicitor, Mr. Dickson, had been instructed to take the necessary action.—(P.A.)