DEMOCRAT FINANCE

Evening Star, Issue 22465, 9 October 1936, Page 16

DEMOCRAT FINANCE

ORGANISER’S CLAIM FAILS LEADERS NOT SEVERALLY RESPONSIBLE i [Pek United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, October 8. ' Judgment for the defendants was given by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., today in the ease in which H. C. Baulf, organiser of the Democrat Political Party, claimed against William Goodfellow, J. B. Donald, A. E. Davy, Spencer Clark, and T. C. A. Hislop for £195, wages alleged to bo due. The question of costs was reserved. After tracing the formation of the Democrat Party, the Magistrate said lhe plaintiff was first told of the new party by the defendant Davy. They had worked together organising and supporting two other political parties and in promoting one which had suffered linancial disappointment. “ They were therefore,” said the Magistrate. “ both concerned as political soldiers of fortune as to the soundness of the arrangement for providing parly funds.” It was first suggested to the plaintiff, said the Magistrate, that he might be appointed organiser at £lO a week and expenses. “ 1 think he gained the impression that he was to bo a weekly servant and that the work was likely to last until a month after the dec-' tion. There was a subsequent interview in October, 1934, when he was shown an agreement, and his wages were fixed by Davy at £6 a week and expenses. About the same time the plaintiff discussed the matter with the defendant Goodfellow, who confirmed the statement that lie was providing the money to finance the concern in the early stages, and intended collecting from others. He and the plaintiff subsequently chose the office premises for the party. The Magistrate said the party seemed to have come into being on October 29, 1934, when Goodfellow. Davy, Baulf, and eight others formed themselves into the Auckland Executive Committee. The plaintiff was present at many of the meetings, and therefore had a full knowledge of the treasurer’s reports. He began work on October 22, and was paid by Davy for one week. He was paid two cheques bv Goodfellow, one for £l6 13s 4d on October 31, two days after the formation of the party, and the other for £l6 on November 28, 1934. The party also paid all moneys owing to him with fair regularity until the middle of January, 1935. The Magistrate outlined the differences which had occurred between Goodfellow and Davy. On the former reducing his contributions, the position became so strained that in July Goodfellow endeavoured unsuccessfully to have Davy removed from the Dominion Executive, and although lie associated himself with the party until August 19, he said ho did so only to try to “ salvage ” it. “ His metaphor is apt,” said the Magistrate. “ I think he thought there was danger of shipwreck and the crew had mutinied. Finally, he decided that his safest place was ashore, and on August 19 he resigned from the party. On the morning of November 28 the ship was posted as missing with the loss politically of all hands.” The Magistrate added that the evidence led him to suppose that the plaintiff went into the venture in an unduly confident and perhaps speculative frame of milid, and with the notion that the party funds would be large and his position secure. “ 1 do not think he intended to look to either of the defendants, Davy or Godfellow, personally for payment. Certainly during the first eight or nine months he knew nothing of Donald, Hislop, or Clark as his employers, for they were not associated with the party until the middle of 1935. He says repeatedly that he expected to he paid out of the party funds to be controlled by the Dominion Executive. I am not prepared to accept the plaintiff’s story of a personal verbal promise by Donald to pay the plaintiff’s debt himself. I think that Donald, who seems to have treated his rather penurious relative with generosity in times of stress, has told me the true version.”

The Magistrate said the plaintiff was clearly a man with no sense of loyalty or sincerity. The correspondence showed that lie and Davy, within a few months of the end of the Democrat Party, made unsuccessful overtures to enlist in the service of a party to whose defeat they had in a measure contributed. Tlie course of the transactions between the parties showed that they never intended to vary the source of payment by imposing any personal responsibilities. The Magistrate said he was not called upon to decide the issue whether the defendants Davy and Hislop held moneys on behalf of the party. It might be that the plaintiff had a remedy against those moneys—if any—in an appropriate action. The defendant Hislop’s statement remained uncontradicted that £I,OOO of the money received by him was expressly _ stipulated as being to recompense him for any personal loss lie might suffer. While it was regrettable that the plaintiffs’ debt remained unpaid, it would be wrong that any of the defendants, some of whom had lost heavily, should have to pay moneys for which it was never intended they should be responsible.

The Magistrate concluded: “ I tbink that Baulf’s services, at any rate after the nomination of candidates, did constitute an illegal practice, and that he is therefore at law precluded from enforcing his contract.”

Banlf announced this afternoon that he intended to appeal to the Supreme Court. His solicitor, Mr Dickson, had been instructed, he said, to take the necessary action.