ELOQUENT DEFENDANT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 51, 12 March 1946, Page 8

ELOQUENT DEFENDANT

MASTERLY CONDUCT OF CASE LENGTHY ADDRESS GIVEN Defendant’s vigorous and active conduct of his sown 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 exer-

cised 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. 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 obr structions, 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 he 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. 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. 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 Decem-

ber 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. 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 over 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 the original objective set at 8.00,000 tons per annum by the end of 1944. An indica-

tion of the success of this programme could be guaged from the following production figures:— 1943 .234,000 tons 1944 760,000 tons 1945 850,000 tons (estimated) In 1946 it was estimated that the output would be a million tons.

Further when the British re-occu-pied Malaya it was found that 300,000 tons of rubber remained intact and was diverted to the U.S.A. while a later report indicated that the entire output of rubber from Ceylon had been reserved for Britain, Australia and New Zealand. More Serious Case Cited

Defendant concluded by saying he would make only one more point regarding the seriousness or otherwise of his alleged offence. He referred the court to a case heard in Te Kuiti on 17th December last when a motorist without a driver’s license, with a windscreen so dirty that it could not be seen through was involved in an accident in which the driver of the other car with his wife was seriously injured and removeto hospital, was convicted and ordered to pay the costs. Magistrate’s Comments

Commenting on the unusually long speech made by the defendant, the Magistrate said that while obviously much of the matter was irrelevant to the case, defendant had aparently felt himself under an obligation to ventillate his feelings, and he had therefore allowed him to proceed. In cases of this nature however he had to take the law as he found it and administer it accordingly. Defendant was fined 20/and costs 33/-.