MINISTER'S REPLY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 212, 23 September 1937, Page 6

MINISTER'S REPLY

-Preas Association.)

Proof of Negligence in Car Accident Cases PROPOSED LEGISLATION

(Bs Telegraph—

WELLINGTON, Tbis Day. Tbe Attorney-General, tbe Hon. II. G. R. Mason, in a statement issued last nigbt, referred to an objection tbat bad appeared in a number of newspapers against bis proposals to alter tbe law relating to liability for motor accidents by eliminatng tbo necessty for proving negligence. Mr Mason said tbat, althougk the rule proposed to be adopted bad not kitkerto been applied to tbo motor.-car in Englisb-speaking euontries, it was a rule wrell known to the law in otber eountries, and was frequently applied in tbe case of any tbings regarded as inherently dangerous. For exaniple, formerly tbe owner of a dog was not liable for damage done by tbo dog unless negligence could be proved against tbe owner, but by the Dog Segistration .Act the owner bad been made absolutely liable, independent of whether or not tbe owner was negligent in respect of it. Mr Mason proposed that tbe time bad como wben the motor-car sbould be classed witb tbe dog as a potentially dangerous thing — as it undoubtedly bad becoine — and sbould be governed by tbe same law. Tbis law also operated in tbe case of trespass by cattle. A number of otber cases of tbe operation of tbe same rule might be quoted, of wkieb the workers' compensation for accidents? was probably tbe most familiar. Tbe motor-car was subject to tbis principle already in some foreign eountries. Poland, Czeckoslovakia and Finland were cases in point. In Franee, Germany, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Denmarlc and Sweden — that is to say, over a very great part of Europe — tbe onus was placed on tbe motorist to skow that he is not tbe cause of tbe accident. As tbe conscience of mankind was skocked at seeing tbe workman without compensation, so it would also require compensation for tbe victim of tbe motor accident. Tbere was nothing new, strange, or unpreeedented in tbe essential idea involved — it was merely being applied to a new set of circumstances wbich developod. He was convinced tbat tbe same feeling of logic and moral fitness whieb made workers' compensation inevitable made inevitable also tbe new proposal in respect of motor accidents.