LIBEL ACTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 127, 30 May 1944, Page 5

LIBEL ACTION

FOOTWEAR FIRM AGAINST N.Z. OBSERVER CLAIM FOR £lOOO BEING HEARD (P.A.) Auckland, May 29. The hearing of a claim against The Observer for £lOOO damages for alleged libel was commenced before Mr. Justice Callan and a jury this afternoon plaintiff being Marathon Rubber Footwear, Ltd., for whom Mr. A. K. North was counsel, and the defendants Geddis and Blomfield, Ltd., represented by Mr. H. P. Richmond. Plaintiff claimed that bv the publication of a statement in The Observer cn August 18 of last year, the reputation and credit of the company was injured and held up to public scandal and contempt, by suggesting that th* company, in concert or collusion with a Department of State or officers of the department, had exerted improper influence on the Government, or its officers, to obtain an undue iprofit, to the detriment of the public, by a monopoly concession or other undue advantage in the manufacture ryid sale of gumboots. The statement read: “While a southern enterprise under the patronage of the Department of Industries and Commerce is pushing ahead at top speed with arrangements for the manufacture of gumboots, an Announcement comes From America that by October the United States production of synthetic rubber will have reached 756,000 tons per annum. This approximates to the pre-war consumption of rubber in the United States for all purposes. It also means that American rubber boots will shortly become freely available and (nlease mark this particularly) that a first-class political ramp will b? engineered for the nurpose of excluding from the New Zealand market n tested, efficient imported article, while the users of rubber boots will be compelled to buy a highly priced local article of almost certainly inferior quality. Th? closer .approach of a supply from outside sources the more furious becomes the pace to get the local article on the market before it arrives." Plaintiff claimed it was the only st uthern firm in New Zealand engaged in the manufacture or preparation for manufacture of gumboots and that ihe article eomnlained of ref rred to the plaintiff and was so intended. Evidence was commenced before the hearing was adjourned till tomorrow.