COURTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12637, 26 October 1905, Page 2

COURTS.

(Per Press Association),

DUNEDIN, October 25. At the Police Count, in the case of Jameg Geddes, charged with having signed his name as witness to a claim for enrolment without having seen the claimant's signature mad©, it was shown in the evidence that before witnessing it defendant asked the claimant if it was her signature, and she replied in the affirmative. The case was dismissed, defendant being allowed a guinea, professional costs. LYTTELTON, October 25. In the Lytltelton Magistrate's Court to-day, Mr Bishop, S.M., gave judgment for the defendant Union, with costs £3 Is, in th© case of Hansen v. th© Lyttelton Stevedores' Union. Harisen had been suspende:! and precluded from working on the Lyttelton wharves for a month, because he went across grasseeed'ing on the Peninsula in February, contrary to 'the rule of the Union providing that tco member shall work for any body or persons other than the Canterbury Stevedoring Association, without a permilt from the Union. The ■Stevedoring Association, in return for 'thiis, agrees not to employ outside labour while members of the Union are available. Plaintiff relied mainly on the English case, Gibbon v. the National Amalgamated .Labourer's Union, in which it was held -that the union, in'teirfering wiith the plaintiff's common law right to dispose of his labour according to his will, was guilty of a tort. Mr Bishop s<aid the legal conditions governing labour in GEngland are entirely different from what they are under our special* legislation in New Zealand. He held that the Umion was not acting unlawfully, and had the necessary statutory .power to make the rules under which it had acted.