Moss v Donohoe [1915] HCA 61

— 20 C.L.R.] OF AUSTRALIA. 615

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALTIA.]

4 'Moss. ss e ' : s : . APPELLANT; DEFENDANT,

AND

'DONOHOE . . . . . ~~~... Resronper. " INFORMANT,

ON APPEAL FROM A STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

Trading with the Enemy—Act prohibited by repealed Proclamation—Trading with 1. C, of A. neutral carrying on business in enemy country—Attempt—Evidence—Summary "1915, conviction—Trading with the Enemy Acts 1914 (No. 9 of 1914—No. 17 of 1914), er. secs. 2, 3—Imperial Proclamation of 5th August 1914—Acts Interpretation Act SyDNEY, 1904 (No. 1 of 1904), sec. 8—Crimes Act 1914 (No. 12 of 1914), sec. 7. May 7.

A company incorporated in the United States of America, and having its Merpourne, head office at New York, had branch houses at Rotterdam in Holland and Sept. 17. at Hamburg in Germany. The company's business was the sale and export

of gin, which was manufactured for it in Holland by independent distillers, Sth, "Before the outbreak of the war it was the company's practice to send the gin 4'van Duly, in bulk to its warchouse at Hamburg, whece it was bottled and packed, and Rich JJ. whence it was exported. M., a resident in Australia, who had dealt with the

company for many years, was convicted before a Stipendiary Magistrate

of an attempt, by means of a letter addressed and posted to the company

at Hamburg in Germany on 11th August 1914, to trade with the enemy.

'On appeal to the High Court,

Held, by Isaacs, Gavan Duffy, Powers and Rich JS. (Griffith C.J. dissenting), that on the evidence the Magistrate might properly find that the letter was an order by M. to the company which then in fact and as M. believed was carrying on business in Germany to supply goods, that M. intended the order to be executed in the ordinary course of the business they were carrying on there, and that he expected to receive the goods in Australia; that on such