ELECTRICAL WIREMEN’S ACT

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 117, 15 February 1928, Page 5

ELECTRICAL WIREMEN’S ACT

A BREACH COMMITTED. Reserved judgment was given by Mr. E. Page, S.M., iu the Magisrtate’s Court vesterdav in the ease iu which Albert Ernest M'ells was charged under the Electrical Wiromeu’s Registration Act with having knowingly employed a person other than a registered electrical wireman to carry out electrical wiring for heating on certain premises in Newtown. Mr. Page stated that the evidence showed that the defendant, who was himself a plumber and a registered electrical wirenian, laid out the wiring work in question, then left a youth, who was apprenticed to the plumbing trade, to carry out the work or part of it. Section 18 of the Act provided that no person other than a registered electrical wirenian, with or without the assistance ot apprentices, should be engaged on the wrok of wiring anv premises. Tlie section seemed to contemplate that the registered wirenian should do something more than tlie lay-ing-out and supervising of tliu work. “He is. I think,” continued the Maglatrate, ‘‘bound to do the work himself (though he may have the assistance of apprentices!. In this case, when the inspector culled, the youth was working alone on the Job. I think that this constitutes a broach of the Statute, even if the youth had been an apprentice within the meaning of section IS. Concerning counsel’s wish that an Interpretation be given to the word “apprentice,” tlie Magistrate said that It seemed to him that the plumbing and electrical wiring trades were distinct from one another, and that, for a youth to be lawfully employed assisting wircmen, he must he apprenticed to the wireman in the electrical wiring trade. It was not sufficient that he should be apprenticed to the wireman in some other capacity, such as in the plumbing trade. A nominal penalty fo £1 and costs was h At° SC tho hearing Mr.- .T. M. Tudhope (assistant Crown Solicitor) prosecuted for tlie Department, while the defendant was represented by Mr. A. T. Young.