Papua New Guinea Law Reports - 1967-68
[1967-68] PNGLR 161
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
[SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE]
BENDING
V
SOUTH PACIFIC POST PTY LTD
Rabaul & Port Moresby
Minogue J
6-8 December 1967
19 February 1968
DEFAMATION - Imputations injuring person’s trade - What constitutes trade - Proof of publication where plaintiff not mentioned explicitly - Defamation Ordinance 1963, s. 6 (1)[ccxli]1 .
To constitute an actionable wrong defamatory matter must be such as to satisfy the definition contained in s. 6 (1) of the Defamation Ordinance 1963, and an imputation concerning a person’s trade cannot be a defamatory imputation within the meaning of s. 6 (1) unless, reasonably construed, it refers to that person in his conduct of his trade.
Dictum of O’Connor J. in Hall-Gibbs Mercantile Agency Ltd. v. Dun (1910), 12 C.L.R. 84, at pp. 103-104, applied.
A person is not likely to be injured in his trade within the meaning of s. 6 (1) unless that person has a business capable of being injured; the mere wish to conduct a business if one had the necessary capital, without holding oneself out to the public as being ready and able to conduct such a business and without taking any active steps to conduct it, does not constitute having a business capable of being injured.
Where the plaintiff is not mentioned by name in the matter alleged to be defamatory and his identity as the person referred to therein would be apparent only to persons who have knowledge of special circumstances it is necessary for the plaintiff to prove it was published to a person or persons who had such knowledge.
Consolidated Trust Co. Ltd. v. Browne (1948), 49 S.R. (N.S.W.) 86; 66 W.N. 7 and Cross v. Denley (1952), 52 S.R. (N.S.W.) 112; 69 W.N. 137, applied.
Action
May Norah Bending commenced an action against South Pacific Post Pty. Ltd. claiming damages for injury alleged to have been caused by the defendant’s publication in a certain tourist guide booklet certain words relating to “Highway Motors”, the firm name or style under which the plaintiff alleged that she conducted business. All relevant facts appear in the reasons for judgment hereunder.
Counsel
Hickey, for the plaintiff.
Brooking (of the Victorian Bar), for the defendant.
Cur. adv. vult.
19 February 1968
MINOGUE J:  In this action the plaintiff sues the defendant for substantial damages for what she alleges in her statement of claim is an injury to her character, credit and reputation. This injury is said to have been caused by the inclusion in a tourist guide in booklet form published by the defendant under the title “Rabaul - Tropical Wonderland” of the following words:
“Buses. Highway Motors operates a fleet of mini-buses over an extensive network. However, they are not recommended for tourists.”
The booklet has been circulated in the Territory and in Australia and New Zealand.
The plaintiff alleges that the business or Highway Motors is hers and she says that by the words complained of the defendant meant and was understood to mean:
(a)      that her bus service was inefficient; and/or
(b)      that her buses were unfit to travel in; and/or
(c)      that her buses were unsafe to travel in; and/or
(d)      that her bus service ought not to be patronized for other reasons.
To constitute an actionable wrong defamatory matter must come within the definition contained in s. 6 of the Defamation Ordinance 1963, which enacts that:
“(1)    An imputation concerning a person, or a member of his family, whether living or dead, by which the reputation of that person is likely to be injured, or by which he is likely to be injured in his profession or trade, or by which other persons are likely to be induced to shun or avoid or ridicule or despise him, is a defamatory imputation.
(2)      An imputation may be expressed either directly or by insinuation or irony.
(3)      The question of whether any matter is or is not defamatory or is or is not capable of bearing a defamatory meaning is a question of law.”
The case put at trial bore a very different appearance to that pleaded. In opening her case Mt. Hickey, for the plaintiff, informed me that she was the proprietor of the business known as Highway Motors and that the business was conducted along two distinct lines—one, as a regular or as he put it, commercial bus service, and the other as a tourist bus service, i.e. conducted tours were or were able to be arranged for tourists. Whilst the latter side of the business had not yet got into its stride, it was potentially a very profitable undertaking. The innuendoes which I have set out above were said to relate to the tourist side of the business. Although it was pleaded that she had been greatly injured in her character, credit and reputation the real gravamen of her complaint was that the offending words contained imputations by which she was not only likely to be injured in her trade but had in fact been so injured. The action was fought from first to last on this basis. Neither Highway Motors nor the plaintiff herself had had any tourist business or inquiries for tourist business since the tourist guide was published in early May 1967, and this lack of business the plaintiff ascribed to the injurious publication.
Mr. Brooking, for the defence, met the plaintiff’s claim head-on, and whilst the defendant admitted and took full responsibility for publication he contended, firstly, that the words were not defamatory because they did not contain any imputation concerning the plaintiff nor could they be taken by a reasonable person to contain such an imputation. He denied her right to sue for she was not, he said, the owner of the business of Highway Motors and consequently she had no trade likely to be or indeed capable of being injured. He also relied on the defences of truth and public benefit afforded by s. 15 of the Ordinance and on the qualified protection afforded by s. 16 (c), (e) and (h) and, for good measure, he took the common-law defence of fair comment.
Both the plaintiff and her husband, Harold James Bending, gave evidence as to the ownership of the business. According to the plaintiff she has at all stages owned the business which has been in existence for some years although until the beginning of 1967 she had been away in Australia for two or three years for personal reasons. The business name “Highway Motors Rabaul” was registered on 21st May, 1956. Unfortunately, the certificate of registration which was tendered by the plaintiff fails to show who is the proprietor. According to her although the business at all times has been hers she left the management of it entirely to her husband, she being in reality a housewife and leaving the whole conduct of her business affairs to him. Early in 1967, for the first time she began to attend to the takings of buses which the business was then running and to the entry of these takings into the books of account, and she also began to pay the drivers. Again, according to her, there are and have been two sides to the business: one which she described as the commercial side under which bus services were run on fixed timetables to various termini in and around Rabaul, and the other which she described as the tourist side. By this I understood her to mean that Highway Motors provided a tourist bus service for such tourists as were minded to make use of it. However, this side had not been active for about three years, principally because the big ships which had in the past brought tourists to Rabaul were no longer calling at that port.
Since the publication of the offending material, so she said, the business had received no inquiries at all for tours for tourists. She was generally supported in her evidence by her husband. According to both the plaintiff and her husband the commercial side of the business was in grave straits because of the action of the Administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in granting a number of motor vehicle permits to members of the native population, which permits allowed them to carry passengers in their vehicles. The bottom had fallen out of the bus service business. Buses had been withdrawn from service and indeed at the present time only three out of ten are running; the others being on blocks and unregistered, there being no use for them. Both the plaintiff and her husband realized that there was no future in running the bus service and their hopes were pinned to the development of the tourist trade which, so it was said, Highway Motors was equipped to develop, and which the plaintiff’s husband had some experience in handling.
The offending material published concerning the bus service was said by both the plaintiff and her husband to have resulted in virtually complete ruination of their hopes and ambitions to develop the tourist side of their business. It was part of the case of both the plaintiff and defendant that there is expected to be an upsurge in tourism in the Rabaul area, that a strong tourist association has been formed, and that although the potential has been scarcely tapped it exists and within the early foreseeable future a flourishing tourist trade is in sight.
However, during cross-examination of both the plaintiff and her husband a somewhat different, not to say pathetic, picture developed. In the first place it became unclear to me as to who was the real owner of the business. As I have said the certificate of registration was of no assistance whatever in enabling me to decide this question. The copy income tax returns of Harold James Bending, the plaintiff’s husband, from that for the year ending 30th June, 1960, to that for the year ending 30th June, 1967, were tendered in evidence by the defendant. These returns were made throughout by Harold James Bending trading as Highway Motors and in each of them he showed his wife, the plaintiff, as wholly dependent on him and, except for the year ending 30th June, 1960, as having no separate net income. In that year the takings appear to have been derived from a garage and taxi business. In 1960 several taxis were purchased and for the year ending 30th June, 1962, the takings of Highway Motors were derived almost equally from receipts from taxis and from a garage workshop, with a small amount being received from the hire of utilities. Towards the end of 1962 eight buses were purchased. In the year ending 30th June, 1964, three of the four taxis owned were sold and in the year ending 30th June, 1965, the remaining taxi was sold whilst another bus was bought for eighty pounds as was also a Holden utility. So that it appears that the bus business began in the latter part of 1962.
At the foot of the depreciation schedule forming part of the husband’s return for the year ended 30th June, 1967, there is a note that “the Rabaul assets were transferred at 1st July, 1967, to Mrs. N. M. Bending at their written down values at 30th June, 1967”. This apparently was intended to leave some assets consisting of a store and fixtures at Keravat with the husband. However, both the plaintiff and her husband swore that there had been no transfer of assets from the one to the other during the past twelve months, and the husband on being questioned as to this notation in his return was quite unable to explain it. He said that his accountant would have to be asked for an explanation but the accountant was not called. The husband none the less stoutly maintained that he did not know the meaning of this notation and that the business and of course its assets at all material times belonged to his wife. I should add that from the evidence of both it is clear that Harold James Bending held himself out as proprietor of the business. The plaintiff agreed that this was the fact although her explanation was that she saw nothing significant in this as he in fact was her manager and conducted the business on her behalf. The husband admitted having publicly stated that he was the proprietor of the business and having written to the Police Department on some matters in connexion with the buses in which he headed his correspondence “Highway Motors, J. Bending, Proprietor”. The husband admitted that his liabilities to various creditors amounted to somewhere about $14,000.
I have been unable to find any satisfactory reason and certainly none was suggested to me for the supposed transfer of assets on 30th June, 1967, nor for the plaintiff in January or February of 1967 beginning for the first time to play some active part in the conduct of the business. I am unconvinced by the evidence that the business is in fact that of the plaintiff and not that of her husband. It is clear to me that neither of them has any real conception of the financial side of conducting a business. It may of course be that the husband has left this side of it to his accountant but I am left quite in the dark as to why if the business belonged to the plaintiff it has been represented to all and sundry as belonging to her husband.
As I have said a number of buses were bought in late 1962. The evidence does not show whether a tourist bus service began at that time but I am satisfied that at some time early in 1963 Harold James Bending conceived the idea of organizing tours for visitors to Rabaul. It was about this time two ships named the “George Anson” and the “Francis Drake” began to call regularly at Rabaul with tourists aboard. H. J. Bending designed a tour which on the face of it seems to have been a most attractive one, had souvenir brochures prepared and set about trying to attract tourist custom from these ships. It is significant I think that at the foot of these brochures the tours were described as being run by Highway Tours (not Highway Motors), James Bending, Proprietor. He arranged with the ship’s agent to have these tours publicized and in fact conducted two such tours. I am satisfied from the evidence of Mr. Simpson who was and is interested in the touristic possibilities of Rabaul and who went on one of these tours that it was very well conducted indeed. The charge was £4 10s. Od. per head, adequate even elegant catering was provided, and Bending did all that was possible to make the tour both enjoyable and successful. Unfortunately, the number of people willing to make the tours did not come up to expectations. On the third visit of one or other of these ships Bending received what to him at any rate was a further setback. The ship was late in arriving—according to him five hours but I think three hours is closer to the mark— and he decided to cancel the tour. He is a man in my judgment of an excitable disposition and with a quick temper and I rather think that on this occasion his temper got the better of him, probably exacerbated by the frustration he felt at the poor financial return from the two earlier tours. The shipping agent came to see him after the arrival of the ship to see why he had not his buses at the ship’s side as promised, to be met with the angry retort that, “You have let me down for the last time”.
Relations between Bending and this particular shipping line were never resumed, and apart from a party of army personnel from Port Moresby anxious to see the war cemetery at Easter 1967 there is no evidence of any other tours having been conducted by Highway Motors, Highway Tours or James Bending. However, on a visit in 1966 of a naval vessel he provided what sounds like a pleasant and well catered-for tour for a number of naval personnel, but a tour for which he made no charge and apparently provided as some sort of a gesture. The only other occasion on which a bus belonging to Highway Motors was used for tourist purposes was at about Christmas time 1966 when, again without charge and with some queer notion of public spirit, he had a bus at the wharf on the arrival of the “Queen Frederica” bearing a placard “Free rides to town to Brown & Woods gift shop”. This bus made several trips to the curio and gift shop of Messrs. Brown & Woods, the manager of which is Mr. Sims who gave evidence before me.
From the foregoing I can only conclude that at no time during 1967 did Highway Motors (whoever was its proprietor) have any business which could be described as a tourist business. Its buses had been advertised for sale. It advertised nowhere and indeed for the past eighteen months because of financial stringency there has been no telephone connected to its premises. No cards or publicity material existed save for about forty cards remaining from the Highway Tours venture of 1963. All that existed in my opinion was a belief by James Bending in his capacity to conduct tours (a physical capacity which I have no doubt he possessed allied with an imagination to plan a successful tour). He took no part in the formation or conduct of the business of the vigorous tourist association which had been formed in Rabaul and, as far as the public was concerned there was no indication that I can find of any readiness in him or in Highway Motors to conduct tours for tourists. By the beginning of 1967 he had only three buses in service, each of which was entered through a back door, two of which had sprung seats with their backs to the side windows of the bus and apparent seating capacity of twelve together with a seating capacity for a further two beside the driver, and the third of which had two seats again with the backs thereof to the side windows of the bus and the actual seating consisting of wooden slats.
The story of the business is a pathetic one and one cannot but feel sympathy for the plight in which Bending found himself but I have come to the reluctant conclusion that really all he had in 1967 were dreams of a new start in a venture in which he had some expertise if only he could hold on long enough for the expected tourists to arrive. I cannot see that either he or the plaintiff had or could have had any tourist business which could be called a going concern or which could be hoped to be set up without a fairly substantial infusion of capital.
In so far as it may be material I now set out what I find to be the facts surrounding the coming into existence and publication of “Rabaul—Tropical Wonderland—Tourist Guide”. The development of a tourist industry for Papua and New Guinea had engaged the attention of a number of people for some time. Such development had been discussed from time to time in the House of Assembly (see House of Assembly Debates[ccxlii]2). A Papua and New Guinea Tourist Board was formed consisting of representatives of both government and the business sector of the community, and on this board were two representatives from Rabaul. In October 1966 the New Britain Tourist Association was formed in Rabaul and at its first meeting on 14th October a number of sub-committees were formed, one of which under the chairmanship of a Mr. Fisher was responsible for items and places of interest. A suggestion put forward at the meeting that a brochure be prepared was approved and its preparation was delegated to Mr. Fisher’s sub-committee. At the second meeting of the association, on 28th October, Mr. Fisher read a report on Rabaul tourist attractions which was prepared for possible inclusion in a brochure to be published by Trans-Australia Airlines. This report contained the words complained of in this action. At this meeting the defendant, which had been publishing a good deal of tourist material in its newspapers and whose policy was to encourage tourism, undertook to publish the brochure for the association without charge to the association. Its cost was to be defrayed by advertising revenue.
At a later stage one Fallon, a journalist who lived in Rabaul and is and was an employee of the defendant, obtained a copy of the report by Fisher’s sub-committee and set about preparing the brochure for publication. I should add that the report containing the offending words was approved without dissent at the meeting at which it was read. Fallon submitted the layout to the association which did not approve of the artwork on the covers and substituted its own design for that of the defendant. The page proofs, also containing the offending words, were finally submitted to the sub-committee of the association responsible for the brochure and after various alterations were made by members thereof it was printed and ready for distribution by 6th May, 1967—the day on which a tourist vessel, the s.s. “Flavia” arrived in Rabaul. On p. 28 of the brochure published there appears a message from the chairman of the Papua and New Guinea Tourist Board, inter alia, commending the production by the defendant of a series of tourist guides to Papua and New Guinea. The s.s. “Flavia” had about seven hundred passengers on board, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, and the Rabaul Tourist Association went to some pains to ensure a wide distribution of the brochure to the passengers. Copies were also distributed to the airlines, to local Rabaul shops, to the hotels and other places of accommodation, to shops in Port Moresby, and to various car hire firms. In all, some 6,800 copies were distributed. Steps were taken to see that as far as possible the brochures came into the hands of tourists or likely tourists, but it is clear that a very wide distribution was given and that any person, whether tourist or not, who wanted a copy of the guide would not have much trouble in obtaining one.
Neither the plaintiff nor her husband were members of the association nor did they take any steps to solicit tourist business from the s.s. “Flavia”. Another firm, by name “All Tours”, went to some pains to distribute material to the passengers, advertising tours in and about Rabaul, but with what success I am unable to say.
At and before the time of the arrival of the s.s. “Flavia”, Highway Motors in addition to its financial difficulties had also a number of other difficulties which at the present time seem to be inherent in or inseparable from the running of a regular bus service in Rabaul. Time schedules were not always adhered to because of the sometimes casual approach of the drivers. The plaintiff’s husband admitted such occasions as a driver leaving his bus to attend a church service or a sporting fixture; the drivers refusing to leave a terminal point until a full load was obtained; the carriage of live stock and produce in the buses, leading on one well-publicized occasion to a pig being stuck in a bus and to the necessity of its partial dismantling before the animal could be extricated. These sorts of difficulties were stated by James Bending to be expected at this stage of development of the native people of Rabaul and, in his view, residents of the district, and I suppose users of his bus line, were not or would not be greatly worried by them.
The first and major question I have to decide is whether the paragraph on p. 34 of the tourist guide contains anything defamatory of the plaintiff. And this in my view requires the answers to two further questions. Firstly, is there any imputation concerning her; and secondly, if there be such is that imputation one by which she is likely to be injured in her trade. This latter question involves in its turn the consideration of whether she has a trade in which she can be injured.
Section 6 of the Ordinance deals separately with the reputation and the business of the person defamed. And as I have said, although the statement of claims complains of the injury to the plaintiff’s character, credit and reputation, the action was fought it and in my opinion it could only be fought on the basis of injury in her trade. In Hall-Gibbs Mercantile Agency Ltd. v. Dun[ccxliii]3 the High Court had to consider the meaning and effect of s. 4 of The Defamation Law of Queensland of 1889 which is the progenitor of s. 6 of the Territory Ordinance, and I respectfully adopt what was said by O’Connor J.[ccxliv]4: “Imputations by which either [i.e. the reputation or the business of the person defamed] are likely to be injured are declared to be defamatory. Every statement defamatory of the man, whether apart from his business, or in relation to his business, is included in the protection of his reputation from injury. On the other hand, every statement concerning him, which is likely to injure him in his profession or trade, whether it injures him in his reputation or not, is included in the provision for the protection of his profession or trade. Having adopted that classification, it is not surprising that the legislature should, for the simplification of remedies, extend the area of protection against defamation still further, so as to embrace the class of case now under consideration, thus giving a remedy as for defamation to every person injured in his profession or in his trade by statements made concerning him, but not extending the remedy beyond cases in which the statement is made of the man whether in relation to his goods or not. Where, however, the statement is made not of the man in relation to his goods, but of his goods alone, the injury is in its nature of a different kind . . . In that case the cause of action is for slander of title . . .” The plaintiff is not mentioned by name in the paragraph. What is referred to is the bus service operated by Highway Motors and to be defamatory and so actionable any imputation must concern a person by which he is likely to be injured in his profession or trade (italics mine). An imputation concerning a person’s trade, for example concerning the quality of the goods he sells or of the services he provides, cannot in my view be actionable except in so far as the imputation can reasonably be construed to refer to that person in his conduct of his trade. I pause to note that the word “imputation” of itself does not connote disparagement—it includes the assertion or attribution of any act or condition whether prima facie injurious to the reputation or not (see Hall-Gibbs Mercantile Agency Ltd. v. Dun[ccxlv]5). “Highway Motors” is an expression which does not point to anybody without the assistance of extrinsic evidence or special knowledge. Mr. Brooking referred me to two cases in New South Wales (Consolidated Trust Co. Ltd. v. Browne[ccxlvi]6 and Cross v. Denley[ccxlvii]7) in which it was held that when the plaintiff is not referred to by name or the identity of the person defamed would be apparent only to persons who have knowledge of special circumstances it is necessary to prove that it was published to a person or persons who had knowledge of these circumstances. No evidence of this nature was tendered. Although these cases deal with the position at common law I think the principle enunciated in them is equally applicable to the position under the Defamation Ordinance and so to this case.
Mr. Hickey strongly urged upon me that in Rabaul with its small population, the ordinary man would know the proprietor or proprietors of every firm or business therein and in such a small local community everybody would be presumed to know that the plaintiff was the proprietor of Highway Motors and that the criticism contained in the offending paragraph referred to her. But I cannot agree with his submission. I am not convinced that the plaintiff is or ever has been the owner of the business and I am satisfied that she has never been reputed to be that owner. All the probabilities point to her husband as owner. True it is that I have had the repeated assertions before me of both that she is in fact the owner; as against these there are the repeated public assertions by Harold James Bending of his proprietorship: his communication with public authorities such as the Police Department in the guise of proprietor, his failure at any stage to correct press reports of his proprietorship, his representations over a period of years to the Commissioner of Taxes that the business is his, and the failure on the part of the plaintiff to produce evidence that the business was ever registered in her name under the Business Names Ordinance 1963 or the repealed Business Names Ordinance 1952-1953, or transferred to her name under these Ordinances. The plaintiff has failed to satisfy me that any imputation contained in the words complained of concerns her and I am prepared on this ground alone to hold that her action fails and indeed that she has no title to sue.
And in my view she is further debarred from success on the equally substantial ground that even if I were to hold that the words in the paragraph referred to her I am not satisfied that the words are defamatory within the meaning of s. 6 and so actionable, because I am not satisfied that either she, or her husband for that matter, at any relevant time had a trade of the kind alleged in which she was likely to be or capable of being injured. I have already set out my findings with regard to the tourist side of the business of Highway Motors and in my opinion the mere wish or desire to conduct a business if one had the necessary capital, without holding oneself out to the public as being ready and able to conduct such a business and without taking any active steps to conduct it, does not constitute having a business which is capable of being injured. And if there is no business capable of being injured I cannot see how it can be said that the person is likely to be injured in his trade by any imputations concerning him—if such there be.
In any event in my opinion the offending paragraph is not reasonably capable of being read as referring to a tourist side of the business of Highway Motors at all. It appears in a section of the tourist guide headed “Public Transport” on p. 34. Information is given in the first place about taxi services then follows the short paragraph complained of which in turn is followed by a section of three paragraphs giving information about hire/drive yourself cars. Boat excursions are next dealt with on p. 36 and then appears a short paragraph headed “Tropic Tours” in which the statement is made that a modern station wagon is available for interesting guided tours of the Gazelle Peninsula and the surroundings of Rabaul. Page 35 consists of a full-page advertisement for Turners Tropic Tours advertising “the latest 21-seater passenger coach or sedan cars ensure you tour in comfort”. The reference to Highway Motors can only be construed as a reference to what was said to be the plaintiff’s commercial bus service, i.e. to buses operating at fixed times and between fixed termini. To state that these buses are not recommended for tourists may carry the implication that the service was inefficient or that the buses were unfit to travel in or even that they are unsafe to travel in, although I think it would be stretching things rather to adopt the latter construction. It may be equally well speculated that they, in the course of a regular run, are unsuitable for inspecting places of interest to tourists or that there is no-one in charge capable of informing tourists during their runs or that they may be used for the carriage of stock and produce (as is and was the case) and so could not be recommended for tourists. But whatever one reads into the words I think it impossible to regard them as containing any reference at all to a tourist service such as is referred to on p. 36 or such as is advertised by Turners Tropic Tours on p. 35. They could in my view only refer to the commercial bus service and so could not convey any imputation concerning a guided tours or scenic tours business.
And so for the reasons I have endeavoured to express the words complained of are not defamatory within the meaning of s. 6 of the Ordinance and the plaintiff must fail.
In the light of what I have said it becomes unnecessary to deal with the other defences raised by the defendant. I had thought in deference to the full argument adduced on these defences that perhaps I should deal with them, but on reflection difficult questions are involved in deciding what is the ambit of publication for public good or for the public benefit, and in the light of my findings of fact I would be dealing with them on too hypothetical a basis. In the result I have thought it better to leave such questions until they come up squarely for decision.
There will be judgment for the defendant with costs.
Adjudged accordingly.
Solicitors for the plaintiff: Lefevre, Hickey & Co.
Solicitors for the defendant: J. Irwin Cromie & McCubbery.

[ccxli]Section 6 (1) of the Defamation Ordinance 1963 enacts, inter alia, that: “An imputation concerning a person, . . . by which he is likely to be injured in his . . . trade . . . is a defamatory imputation.”
[ccxlii]Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 1355; Vol. 1, No. 10, p. 1850; Vol. 1, No. 14, p. 2745.
[ccxliii](1910) 12 C.L.R. 84.
[ccxliv](1910) 12 C.L.R., at pp. 103, 104.
[ccxlv](1910) 12 C.L.R. 84.
[ccxlvi](1948) 49 S.R. (N.S.W.) 86; 66 W.N. 7.
[ccxlvii](1952) 52 S.R. (N.S.W.) 112; 69 W.N. 137.