ELOQUENT DEFENDANT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 50, 8 March 1946, Page 5

ELOQUENT DEFENDANT

MASTERLY CONDUCT OF CASE

LENGTHY ADDRESS GIVEN Defendant’s vigorous and active conduct of his own case was an unusual feature of a prosecution for speeding in the Whakatane Magistrate’s Court last Tuesday, when Alan Eric Lambert pleaded not guilty, and cross-examined the County Traffic Inspector (Mr A. Carling) at some length. Defendant who also addressed the court in eloquent terms had apparently gone to some length to prepar his case, and the patience exercised by the Magistrate (Mr E. L. Walton S.M.) was also an unexpected feature of the hearing. Mr T. Hamerton appeared for the County Council, and the Inspector gave evidence to the effect that Lambert had been followed a distance of one mile when his speed was checked at 52 m.p.h. A War Regulation

To the defendant’s question Inspector Carling admitted that he had not made any attempt to vary his speed; that the road was clear, that there were no intersections or obstructions, and that apart from the war regulations he would not have attempted to stop him. Defendant: In fact in the circumstances no offence would have been committed but for the regulations had a motorist been travelling at 70 miles per hour?

Witness: No. Defendant then remarked to the bench that he wished to clear up the point as some of the County Councillors with intellects as sluggish as their physical movements appeared to be under the impression that the charge was one of speeding. Witness in answer to further pointed questions agreed that the basis of the prosecution was simply and solely one of tyre conservation, and that it would be difficult to compute the extra amount of rubber lost in travelling at 50 m.p.h. as against 40 m.p.h.

A Farmer’s Viewpoint

Defendant: Apart from your present occupation you also have farming interests. Witness: Yes.

Defendant: And you agree that it is important that dairy cows should be milked to a regular timetable and that in such a season as this one any upset through even one late milking would probably result in a drop in production. Witness: Yes that is so.

Defendant: So that to get a large herd of cows milked to time would be so vastly more important to the country than- an infinitismal quantity of rubber? Witness: Probably it would be. Growing Public Opinion

Defendant then addressed the Magistrate declared that the seriousness or otherwise of the alleged offence was conditional to the state of national emergency existing when the regulations were drawn up. There was however a grave and increasing public opinion that many wartime regulations and the one in question among them were likely to be continued in force purely in furtherance of a political policy of national- economic self-sufficiency. That there were grounds for this belief he would endeavour to show —in an Auckland ‘daily’ on December 22 there appeared a sub-leader which stated ‘an increasing suspicion was spreading amongst motorists unless the Government was made to feel the pressure of public opinion there were many who held the opinion that the restrictions on car tyres were deliberately extended to cover the period which must elapse before the three projected New Zealand factories can begin production and 'reach full output. No Shortage of Rubber

A report from Washington dated December 22, had stated that tyre rationing in the U.S.A - . was at an end. Similarly a report from Ottawa (December 26) stated that rationing in Canada would also cease on January 1, 1946.

To show that there was no world shortage of rubber, he quoted from the Automobile Association’s bulletin of December 7 last in which it was stated that crude stocks held by America represented approximately twelve months supply for •that country just oven 600,000 tons. The synthetic rubber production at the time rated at 26,000 tons in the

U.S.A. America planned for a tremendous expansion of synthetic rubber, manufactured with thd original objective set at 800,000 tons per. annum by the end of 1944. An indication of the success of this programme could be guaged from the following production figures:—