THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA AND THE POST MASTER GENERAL V. AMALGAMATED WIRELESS (AUSTRALIASIA) LIMITED 3/1939

THE COMMONWELATH OF AUSTRALIA AND THE POST MASTER GENERAL

ve.

AMALGAMATED WIRELESS (AUSTRALASIA) LIMITED.

JUDGMENT. MR JUSTICE RICH.

TED WIRELESS (AUSTRALASIA) LIMITED.

Order Suit dismissed with costs, but without prejudice to any action which the plaintiffs may be advised to bring in relation to the defendant's obligation to confprm to the International Telegraph Convention of St. Petersburg or Madrid

or the regulations annexed thereto. '

LIMITED.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA AND THE POST MASTER GENERAL ve.

AMALGAMATED WIRELESS (AUSTRALASIA) LIMITED.

JUDGMENT. RICH J.

The object of this suit is to restrain the, defendant company from distributing among certain newspapers copies of overseas messages trans- mitted from Englend or Canada over steluireless system. It appears that before the establishment by the defendant company of beam wire- less communication with Great Britain when the newspapers depended upon cables for their European news a system obtained by which news coming over the cables was simultaneously distributed among newsgepers for which it was intended. An association or associations of certain of thw principal newspapers had been formed and cables were sent addressed by a registered indicator word to the association. From the cable offic copies of the messageswere distributed among the constituvent members of

° /bSociation. Except where a newspaper was in the same city as the offic

2. [eee company so that copies of the messages could be delivered by hand the practice necessarily involved the use of the Post Master General's In_lend Telegraph System. | Arrangements subsisted between the Post Master General and the cable company under which charges were fixed end their collection and payment arranged for; an arrangement carrying,no am doubt,some profit to the Post Master General's department. When the ne beam wireless stations began to operate an analogfous arrangement wes made with the defendant company. The defendant company carries on méer franchises from the Commonwealth which is the holder of half of its share capital. The franchises consist in licences under the Wireless A and the Post end Telegraph Act. 'The former licences authorise the com- peny to maintain and operate its wireless statéions and to conduct there from a radiontelegraphic servide with the stations in Great Britain and Ceneade, The latter licences authorise the company to use its telegraph lend line between its receiving and transmitting stat#ions which ere situated a little out of Melbourne and its office in that city and thence