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HOW BIG IS A "LOCALITY "?
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The Answer Depends on Whether a Farming Community is Close-knit or Widespread: No Arbitrary Mileage Limit Can be Set in Reason or in Law by Our Legal Adviser
T0 what extent is a farmer entitled to carry goods for a neighbour for payment under a 1: licence? Hauliers and farmers lave different ideas on the subject, )tit the argument can be settled—if it s capable of settlement—only by areful scrutiny of the Road and Rail 7raffic Act, 1933.
Section 1 (i) of the Act makes it 'legal to use a goods vehicle on a oad for the carriage of goods for tire or reward except under a icence. Sub-section (5) of that secion, however, provides that " for the purposes of this Part of this Act the arriage by a person engaged in griculture in any locality f goods for or in connecon with the business of griculture carried on by nother person in that )cality, so long as the oods are carried in a ehicle which the person arrying them is audio[zed by a licence to use )r the carriage of goods ›r or in connection with is agricultural business, tall not be deemed to Dnstitutea carrying of le goods for hire or reward." This exemption has caused a great cal of controversy and the legititate interests of genuine members I the farming community must be alanced against the natural desire f hauliers to see that this loophole nes not lead to widespread abuse of le obvious intentions of the Act. For its true interpretation, the proision requires the elucidation of the )flowing words or expressions:—(a) person engaged in agriculture "; (b) agriculture "; (c) " locality.".
Not Whole-time
Taking these in order, the first is
-obably the easiest. It should be ated that the word " farmer " is not ied and there is nothing to say that Le person's connection with farmig (using a neutral word until we tve dealt with the meaning of agriculture ") need be other than .irly tenuous. There is no need, terefore, for the individual to be tgaged whole-time in farming.
To decide the meaning of " agriilture " is not so simple. Primarily, e word connotes the cultivation of nd.
The expression "agricultural purme," which occurs in the Motor ehicles (Construction and Use) egulations, 1951, cannot cover the Lbsidiary and ancillary activities of e farming industry apart from era I "cultivation."
This view is based on a decision of the Divisional Court as long ago as 1914, when it was said that "carrying goods to market could not be called an agricultural purpose." However, that statement and interpretation of the phrase were based entirely on the close proximity in the (then) Locomotives Act, 1898, of the words " threShing, ploughing or any other agricultural purpose," and it was held that the latter words must be interpreted ejusdem generis with the first words.
Thus, "agricultural purpose" may bear a very restricted meaning, yet "engaged in agriculture" may have a much wider one. The reason is that it has been held that the words "employed in agriculture" for the purposes of unemployment insurance include employment in any operation in the production, preparation, or transfer of the products of farming to a first buyer or to a salesman or agent for sale.
It would seem, therefore, that there is no real justification for restricting the meanings of "person engaged in agriculture" or "agricultural business" to the movement of vehicles merely about the farm and its immediate outlying parts.
I suggest with diffidence—in view of the lack of judicial authority on this point and the controversies which are aroused by the whole topic—that the exempting provision of Section 1 (5) is intended to benefit farmers in any " locality " (of which there is no definition at all) by enabling them to assist neighbouring farmers not only about their own farms, but also in the carrying of any goods or products to or from, for instance, their local market towns.
In other words, to farm in a " locality " does not appear to mean the mere area bounded by or adjacent to the farm itself. It must be taken to include a sort of "sphere of influence," or, rather, a "sphere of business operations," which will vary according to the type of "locality." In a closely worked, thickly inhabited market-garden area the sphere might be quite small; in a wild, sparsely inhabited area the nearest market town and railhead might be 20 miles away.
It should be noted that the neighbours for whom a farmer may carry must also come from the same locality. The word is used twice in the section in exactly the same sense and it is clearly impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rule as to mileage radius outside which it is illegal for a farmer to pick up other farmers' goods.
If the section had intended that, it would have said so and to fix a five-mile radius arbitrarily, as one Licensing Authority—who was subsequently supported by another—recently did, is entirely unjustified. In purporting to do so, I submit that he was acting without j urisdiction-whatever the moral rights or wrongs of the problem may be.
The answer is clearly for some formula to be devised which would be acceptable to both the farming community and the road haulage industry. For such a formula to be not merely acceptable but, in fact, accepted without question, it would be necessary for it to be incorporated in amending legislation.
Test of Reasonableness
As the law stands at present, " locality " has never been judicially interpreted, and if it becomes necessary for that to happen, you may be sure that the courts will say: "It must depend on the circumstances of each particular case and the test to be applied is whether the area in which the farmer was purporting to carry on his agricultural business was a reasonably necessary area, looked at not only from the farmer's viewpoint, but from the public's.
Such a test of reasonableness "in each particular case" is the general refuge of the courts when they are confronted with an ill-defined phrase for which the legislature is responsible.
It may well be that it is impossible to draft an entirely satisfactory definition of " locality." In that case the word should either be dropped and a fresh approach made to the problem by the legislature, or it should be accepted that the " reasonable test is the right one in each case.
This will make for varied interpretations, but as circumstances vary infinitely, perhaps less injustice would be done that way than by attempting to impose an arbitrary mileage radius.
It is important to distinguish between farmers' vehicles licensed at the normal rate of tax and authorized under C licences and those which, being used solely by a farmer for the carriage of goods in connection with his own land, may be licensed under the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, at a preferential rate. The 1949 Act clearly states that the vehicle must be used as specified "and for no other purpose."
Section 13 (5) of that Act, however, slightly modifies the absolute embargo on carrying another farmer's goods. It allows the farmer whose vehicle is taxed at the preferential rate to carry produce and other agricultural requisires for another farmer, so long as the other person's goods represent only a small part of the total load, so long as work for others is done only occasionally and no payment or reward of any kind is received. There is really little excuse for a farmer who abuses licence conditions.