FRUIT EXPORT CONTROL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 611, 13 March 1929, Page 11

FRUIT EXPORT CONTROL

ACTION AGAINST BOARD AUTHORITY DISPUTED I'ress Associa non W ELDING TON, To - day. The Full Court, consisting of Mr. Justice Herd man. Mr. Justice Adams. Mr. Justice Macgregor. Mr. Justice Ostler and Mr. Justice Kennedy, was engaged to-day in hearing argument «•: an originating summons brought by l Son shi of Christchurch and Wellington, against the New Zealand Fruit Control Board. Mr. E. Parry appeared for the plaintiff. Mr. A. Gray. K.C.. lor the defendant. and Mr. A. E. Currie for the Crown. Mr. Parry outlined the facts as agreed upon by the parties to the case. The board was established by Act in 1924, and lias control of the export of apples and pears, except from Otago. At lirst it acted by agreement with tho growers. In December. 1926, it gave notice under section S of the Act, of its intention to assume limited control of all such fruit intended for export. In anticipation of the issue of a notice, the board applied to the Department of Agriculture for the publication of regulations to define means by which it should notify its intention. No reply was received, but the department caused regulations to be made by an Order-in-Council, and published in the Government Gazette on December 23. No notice of the regulations was communicated to the board, and it caused its notice to be published in the majority of the loading newspapers in the Dominion. This notice was not published in the Gazette as was required by the regulations prepared by the Department of Agriculture. The plaintiff company now contends that the control assumed and t xercised by the hoard in pursuance of the notice is invalid, and it claims the right to deal directly with the growers of fruit intended for export, independently oi the board, and to sell their lruit to purchasers in Europe without the intervention of this board. Counsel are engaged in purely legal argument, centring around the validity of the notice and the question of its insufficiency under the Government regulations.