UNDER-WEIGHT BUTTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 October 1921, Page 5

UNDER-WEIGHT BUTTER.

MACHINES USED FOR WEIGHING. RESPONSIBILITY ON FIRM. By Telegraph.— Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. Mr. McCarthy, S.M., gave judgment to-day upon charges of selling underweight. butter brought recently against the Tai Tapu Dairy Company and the Central Dairy Company. The former company was fined. £-30 and the latter £l5. In his judgment the magistrate said one cannot blind oneself to the fact that these underweight prosecutions are recurring factors in our judicial life, and the trend of events is for goods to be sold under weight. If the court can be safely challenged to see a test made, as was done in these cases, and to see machines at work, what is the explanation of machines cutting amiss and thus giving rise to these prosecutions? The people of this Dominion are paying a high price for their butter, and tney are entitled, not to over-weight, but to full net weight. The Legislature is putting no undue strain on our manufacturers and merchants. There is no compulsion in their undertaking the sale of food in packets; all that the Legislature demands is that these persons fulfil their statutory demands and contractual obligations. If for the sake of speed they choose to invoke the aid oi delicate machinery for the purpose of weighing and subdivision, they must see that this machinery is honestly ■used and kept in a state of efficiency. On fining a Christchurch company £5 for selling milk below the prescribed standard, His Worship said section 13 of the Act, which provides that it should be no defence that, defendant did not act wilfully, unless he also proved that he had taken all reasonable steps to ascertain that the sale of the article would not constitute an offence, was never intended to over-ride or put an end to the vicarious responsibility of a master for an act of his servant.

The only relevance of mala tides on the part of the defendant company was when the court came to consider the question of penalty.