POLICE ACTION FAILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 265, 8 November 1937, Page 9

POLICE ACTION FAILS

SPRINGBOK SOUVENIR MAGAZINE CASE OF INTEREST TO PRINTERS [ Ter Press Association. ] WELLINGTON, Nov. 5. A points of considerable interest to printers was decided by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in a reserved judgment to-day in which he held that a certain publication dealing with the Springbok tour could not be defined as a programme. A prosecution was brought by the police against Roy Wynle Stewart, manager of the printing firm of Stewart Lawrence and Company, Limited, Wellington, who was charged with printing an unauthorised programme. At the hearing Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle prosecuted and Mr. A. B. Sievwright appeared for Stewart. “The document, designated as a souvenir magazine of the South African New Zealand tour of 1937 was printed by defendant and distributed for sale in Napier on the day of the South Africa-Hawke’s Bay football match,”, said the magistrate, in a written judgment. “The prosecution alleges that the document purports to be a programme of the match and that defendant Thereby committed a breach of the Police Offences Act, 1927. Section 37 prohibits the printing of any document purporting to be a programme of (inter alia) ‘football matches’ without the express licence in that behalf from the person or association of persons having the management or control thereof. The document does not purport to be a programme at all. It is in every sense a descriptive magazine or brochure as indicated by its title. The prosecution, however, contends that the inclusion of the names of the players from whom the two teams fcr the match in question were to be selected brings the booklet within the meaning of a programme and further, that it would be bought only as such. The word programme is in every day use and means a written or printed list of pieces, items or numbers of a concert or other public entertainment in order of performance. The document now before the Court does no more than include the names of 29 South African and 19 Hawke’s Bay players from whom the team would be chosen. It gives no information of the date of the match or of the time of commencement. Viewing the document as a whole, I come to the conclusion that it is a bona fide record of the South African tour in New Zealand and nothing else. A similar reference to the players from whom the teams would be chosen was probably made in every daily newspaper published in New Zealand on the morning of the match.”