AN INTERESTING CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9702, 27 January 1910, Page 5

AN INTERESTING CASE.

By Telegraph—Press Assciation DANNEVIRKE, January 26.

A case of interest 'to sheepfariners was called on at Cotirt to-day, when the Inpsectpr of Awards for Hawke's Bay claimed from Mrs Franklin, a sheepfarmer of Ti Tree Point, the sum of £SOO as penalty for an offence under section 5. of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1908. The following are the'particulars of the alleged offence: —The defendant, being a person bound by the Wellington shearers' ward, dated April 4th, 1908, did on November 4th, 1909, employ seven shearers, and further, on November 4th, 1909, did lock out the said shearers, and thus become a party to a lock-out in the sheep shearing industry in the county of Weber, For the prosecution it was alleged that the men refused on more than one occasion to shear sheep because they were wet; that defendant's son said to the men "either shear the sheep or take your cheques." The men took their cheques. It was contended by the Inspector that the action ot Franklin in giving an alternative to the men constituted a lock-out. The Magistrate declined to decide the point off hand, and evidence for the defence is being heard to-nighi. The question is whether under the award shearers were justified in refusing to shear sbepp because they were wet.