NOT A PROGRAMME

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 37, 6 November 1937, Page 8

NOT A PROGRAMME

-Prese "Aasociation.)

Publication Dealing with Springbok Tour ECH0 0F H.B. MATCH

(By Telegraph-

WELLINGTON, Last Night. A point of considerable interest to printers has been decided b/- Mr. J. H. , Luxford, S.M., in a reserved judgment to-day, in which he held that a certain publication dealing with the Springbok tour could not be defined ■ as a programme. . The proseGution was brought by the police against Roy Wynle Stewart, . manager of the printing firm of Stewart, Lawrence and Company, Limited, Wellington, who was charged with printing an unauthorised programme. At the hearing Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle prosecuted and Mr. A. B. Sievwright appeared for Stewart. The document, designated as a souvenir magazine of the South Africans' New Zealahd tour of 1937, was' pfinted by def endant and - dis- : tributed for sale in Napier on the day of the South Af rica-Hawke 's Bay football match, said the Magistrate in a written judgment. The prosecution alleges that the document purports to be the programme of a mateh and that . defendant thereby committed a breach of the Police Offenoes Act, 1927." Section 37 prohibits the printing of any document purporting to be^ programme of (inter alia) "football matches" without express license in that behalf from a person or assoeiation of persons having the management or control thereof. The document dpes not purport to be a programme at all. It ia in every sense a descriptive magazine or brochure as indicated b-y its title. * The prosecution, however, contends that the inclusion 6f names of .players from whom . two - teams for the match in question were to be selected -brings the - hooklet within ■the meaning of a programme and, further, that it. would - be bought only- a3 such.' ' The word programme is in ey.ery-day • use and means a written or printed list of pieces, items or numbers of > a concert or other publie. entertainment in the order of their' performance.- - The document now before the. DonrV does no' more than inciude the names -of 29 South African and 19 Hawke's Bay players from whpm teams .- would be chosen. It gives no information of the date of the match or of the time of commencement. "Viewing the document as a .whole, I come to the conclusion, " said Mr. Luxford, "that' it is a bona'fide record of the South African . .tour in New Zealand and nothing else. , 'A similar xeference to players from whom the, teams would be chosen was probably made in every daily newspaper published in New Zealand on the morning oi the match."- . ;