COURT OF APPEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 263, 16 April 1915, Page 4

COURT OF APPEAL.

TRADE WITH THE ENEMY. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, April 15. In the Court of Appeal, Sir Robert Stout (Chief Justice) and Justices Denniston i Edwards, Cooper and Chapman sat this morning to hear argument on the questions reserved at the trial in February last of Wilhelm Heinrich Magnus DuerkofT for illegal trading with the enemy. The jury found prisoner guilty on four indictments laid under section 35 of the Regulation of Trade and Commerce Act 1914, and found 'a special verdict upon the fifth indictment, which was laid under the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1914. It appeared that the Regulation of Trade and Commerce Act, 1914, was repealed on November Z, 1914, by the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1914, and the proceedings, against DuerkofT were not commenced until after November 2, and counsel contended that as the. Act had been repealed the proceedings were invalid. The Chief Justice, who presided at the trial, overruled the objection, and one of the questions for the. court is whether he was right in doing so. Argument is proceeding. Wellington, Last Night.

At the conclusion of Mr. Neave's argument the Court intimated that it did not wish to hejir argument from counsel for the Crown, except with reference to the fifth indictment.

Tho Attorney-General admitted that he eould not validly distinguish the English Court of Appeal decision in the Continental Fire and Rubber Co., Ltd., v. Tilley, and that on the facts as found by the jury he could not press for a conviction. Tim Court unanimously upheld the verdict of guilty on the first four indictments, hut, following the English ease, it held that on the facts found by the jury on the fifth indictment the prisoner could not be convicted.