The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1882. INTERESTING TO FARMERS

Temuka Leader, Issue 1013, 5 October 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1882. INTERESTING TO FARMERS

At the meeting of the Temuka Road Board hold last Tuesday the question of compelling farmers to clear the gorse growing from their fences on to the

public roads came up. The Surveyor reported that some farmers had signified their intention of not complying with the order of the Board calling on them to clear the gorsc. We would ask farmers to consider this matter well before involving themselves in law, for the Board are determined to go to law, and that immediately, if the gorse is not cleared. In the Lyttelton Tunes of the 20th of September last, the following case is reported “ J. C, Boys was charged on tlie information of the Mamlevillc and Rangiora Road Board, under the 98th clause of the Public Works Act, with allowing gorse to grow from his fence on to a public road. Mr Joynt appeared for the plaintiffs, and My Grcgpon appeared for |hc defendant,

The evidence was taken, and the Bench inflicted a fine of £5.” We presume that the law is the same in North as in South Canterbury and that therefore it is useless for farmers to go against the order of the Board, To go to law means to lose time and money, and according to the case abore cited there is very little prospect of their getting out of haring to cut the gorse in the end. The Chairman and the Surveyor were, at the last meeting of the Board, empowered to take action in the matter of insisting upon the gorse being cleared off the roads, and we make a great mistake if they do not go about it effectually very soon. Farmers would, therefore, do well to go to work at once, and not lay themselves open to be put to trouble and expense.

MR MENDELSON ON LAW. Mr Mendelson attended the meeting of the Teuiuka and Geraldine Agricultural and Pastoral Association last Tuesday evening. Mr Mendelson is a member of the Association, but is not a member of the Committee appointed last August. The fact that he is a member of the Association gives him no right to sit on the Committee, or to take any action in its proceedings. Still Mr Mendelson did take action, moved resolutions, and busied himself very much in the affairs of the Committee, and he was tolerated. The resolutions he moved, therefore, are invalid, because he had no right, as an outsider, to take part in the proceedings. Mr Twomey, if he had wanted to treat Mr Mendelson as Mr Mendelson would have treated him at the Linseed meeting, could have pointed out this, and insisted upon the law being adheied to, as Mr Twomey is a member of the Committee, and Mr Mendelson is not. But Mr Twomey allowed him to go on, no doubt regarding his conduct as great fun, till at last Mr Mendelson capped it all by finding a mare’s nest. At the commencement of the meeting Mr Mendelson laid hold of a copy of the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act, under which the local Association has recently been incorporated, and very soon he was mounted on his “ hobby horse,” the law. All his energies were at once awakened to the uttermost degree—to every question that was brought up he had a legal quibble to throw in its way, till the whole discussion brisiud with points of law. But the egotistic way in which he laid down the law was the best of it all. He would, whenever any subject came up say. “Before you go any further, with your leave, Mr President I will point out to you,” and then he would read. He would say again, “If you want my opinion on it, ” just in as self-satisfied a way as if he had been the greatest legal genius of the nge. In vain did the President tell him that the law had already been complied with in regard to the forming of bye-laws, and other things, Mr Mendelson still continued to expatiate on the necessity for complying with the law till he had read over the mest of the Act, and came to sub-section 8 of clause 12, He felt sure that lit had found something to show that everything was wrong, and that his own presence in the Committee was indispensible, and he jumped to a con- ! elusion at once on reading the following: I “ The annual payments by ordinary j members of the society, or sums paid in lieu thereof as contributions for lite, shall be paid to the Treasurer, or to any collector to be named by him ; such collector being bound to find security for Ids fidelity to the satisfaction of the general Committee,” etc., etc. Mr Mendelson at once said that the whole thing was wrong ; they wore not working in accordance with the Act, in not having a bond from the collector, and that would invalidate the whole proceeding. The manner in which he read the danse, without regard to stops and points, led the members into the belief that he was right, and as the collections of the Association are light, and the making out of a bond would involve expense, it was considered a rather awkward thing. Several members suggested that it would be unnecessary, but Mr Mendelson held that if not done all the pioceedings of the Association would be invalid, and that it must be done, forgetting, perhaps, that he himself was invalidating the proceedings (hat moment, and had been all the evening, by taking part in what he had no right to. Mr Twomey, who had the assurance to doubt Mr Mendelson’s lawq got the Act in his hands, and soon his reading of it set matters straight. He pointed out that it was a collector named by the Treasurer who would have to give the security, that there was no necessity for the Treasurer, to give security, and as the Treasurer, had not named or employed a collector, JJjcre [

was no collector from whom a bond could he got, therefore the bond difficulty was burst up. Mr Mendelson made some remarks on this reading, and Mr Quinn, with a broad smile, said that no doubt Mr Mendelson had read the clause correctly in his own way, but there were two ways of reading it, and it happened that Mr Mendelson’s was the wrong way. Mr Mendelson collapsed, and was not heard of afterwards. His law was burst np, his legal acumen had been shattered to pieces, and so ho shrank into the wreck of the splendid point which he thought he had scored. There is one thing in this matter which is more than a joke, and it is this : B the man who cannot read correctly a plain legal sentence—for the sentence referred to is extremely easy to understand—fit to sit as a Justice of the Peace, and be entrusted with the administration of the law ? We offer no opinion on the subject. We ask the question, like I)ord Par tie, merely for information. We would, however, suggest to Mr Mendelson the advisability of giving up law altogether, because it is too intricate for him to understand, but we fear very much he will not accept our advice, and that when he takes his farewell of this world tlure will be a clause found in his will, setting forth that his last request is that the statutes of New Zealand shall be buried with him.

THE BUTTER AND CHEESE FACTORY. What are the Directors of the Butter, Cheese and Bacon-curing Factor/doing? We have not heard of them for some time past, although we think that it is high time the/ were going to work. They have selected a site, sold sufficient shares to enable them to go on, complied with all that is required by law, and we cannot understand how it is that they are not calling for tenders, and erecting buildings. There is no doubt, though, that the Directors are pushing men, the most so, perhaps, in the district, and we feel sore that if they are a little slow they will be sure in the end. What has led us to make these remarks is a report which came to our ears to the effect that the project had been abandoned. This report we can confidently say is without foundation in fact. There is no fear of the project being abandoned, and there is not the slightest danger of it proving unsuccessful. Shareholders and interested parties may rest assured of that.