The Sale of Goods Act of 1908 is virtually a replica of the English legislation. One small difference is that there is no market overt in New Zealand.

A common law lien is a right to retain possession of a chattel as security for a debt owed in respect of that chattel. For example, an unpaid seller may retain the goods although they have become the buyer's property. A workman who has done work on an article may retain it until his debt is paid. If he is unpaid for two months the workman has a statutory right to sell the article by auction after giving notice.

Another type of lien is created by the Wages Protection and Contractors Liens Act of 1939. The principle of the Act is that a contractor, subcontractor, or worker doing work on land or goods who has a claim against his employer may require the amount of his claim to be withheld by a superior contractor or head employer out of the money due to the immediate employer under the contract. Where land is involved and an action is commenced to enforce the lien it may be registered as a charge against the land. This procedure gives a remedy where the head contractor claims against the owner. Whether or not notice of a lien has been given, portion of the contract price must be withheld for 31 days after a contract is completed.

The New Zealand law relating to most types of insurance is identical with that of England. Insurance is compulsory under the Workers' Compensation Act in respect both of claims arising out of that Act and of employers' common law liability for negligence. The Transport Act of 1962 provides for compulsory third party liability insurance by owners of motor vehicles. New Zealand pioneered this legislation in 1928, but today the scope of compulsory motor accident insurance is narrower than that in many other countries.

Much of the law relating to hire purchase is the general law of contracts. Some degree of regulation was introduced by the Hire Purchase Agreements Act of 1939. This lays down rules to protect purchasers where goods are repossessed by the seller. The object is to ensure that, because of the purchaser's inability to complete the transaction, the seller does not receive more than the price of the goods. The buyer cannot contract out of the Act, but it does not apply if the goods are voluntarily returned, albeit at the seller's persuasion.

The Chattels Transfer Act of 1924 requires certain instruments affecting the title to or possession of chattels to be registered in the Supreme Court. The object is to prevent frauds which may be committed where one person possesses goods the ownership of which has passed to or remains with another. The principal classes of instrument requiring registration are securities and non-customary hire-purchase agreements. An unregistered instrument is void as against a subsequent registered instrument, a bona fide purchaser of the goods for value, and the Official Assignee. The goods are also liable to seizure by creditors of the person in whose apparent order and possession they are found. Securities may be given over existing and, in some cases, future book debts, crops, stock, and wool. These are liable to registration in the ordinary way. Securities given by companies are registrable under the Companies Act but not the Chattels Transfer Act.

The Act exempts customary hire-purchase agreements from registration. These are agreements between traders and members of the public in respect of goods which are specified as being commonly bought on hire purchase.

Except in the case of incorporated bodies, there is no provision in New Zealand for registering business or trading names. This differs from the position in England, Australia, and some other places. Subject to the law which makes a person liable for passing his goods off as those of another, anyone may carry on business under any name he chooses.

The law of bankruptcy in New Zealand, although generally similar to that of England, differs in details. Among the principal deviations are that the Official Assignee combines functions performed by the official receiver and the trustee in England, and that an immediate adjudication of a debtor as bankrupt is sought following a bankruptcy petition, the English receiving order procedure being unknown. The bankruptcy law has been little altered since 1893 and a badly needed revision is in progress.

In the broad sense commercial law includes company law and the law of contracts. This article contains brief notes on some topics not covered elsewhere.

For the most part commercial law in New Zealand follows that of England. This is true not only of those matters which are governed by the common law, but also of many of the subjects regulated by statute – for example, arbitration, bills of exchange, marine insurance, partnership, and trademarks.

(1849–1935).

Professor of Medicine in the University of Otago and first editor of the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Daniel Colquhoun was born at Glasgow in 1849, where he received his education. He studied medicine in London at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, graduating M.D. (London) and M.R.C.P. in 1880. He was appointed an assistant lecturer and, later, a senior assistant physician in the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, from which position he was appointed in 1884 to the Lectureship in Medicine in the University of Otago. He arrived in Dunedin in April 1884 at the age of 35 to begin his teaching and at the same time he entered private practice. He at once proved himself to be a sound physician and a good teacher of medicine. For nearly 30 years he gave of his best to the university, the hospital, and the community, and was a leader in every movement having as its object the improvement of medical education and practice in New Zealand. In 1909 he was appointed Professor of Medicine, part time. He retired in 1916, but in view of the war he agreed to continue his teaching until October 1918, when he left for England. He returned to Dunedin in 1933 where he died on 27 February 1935, in his eighty-sixth year.

Professor Colquhoun was a physician of the old school. Always faultlessly dressed, always driven by a chauffeur, always dignified and pontifical, and frequently in a minority of one in professional discussions, he was withal a most kindly person whose influence for good permeated the whole community. He bequeathed £2,000 to the medical library and £500 for the relief of “decayed gentlewomen”.

In 1884, at Dunedin, Colquhoun married Christian Campbell Macmillan (who predeceased him) – there was no family.

by Charles Ernest Hercus, KT., D.S.O., O.B.E., U.D., M.B. CH.B.(N.Z.), M.D., D.P.H., B.D.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.S., Emeritus Professor, University of Otago.

• Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the Early Days, Fulton, R. V. (1922)
• Annals of the University of Otago Medical School, 1875–1939, Carmalt Jones, D. W. (1945)
• The Otago Medical School under the First Three Deans, Hercus, C. E. and Bell, G. (1964).

Situated in mid-Canterbury, 60 miles west of Christchurch, Lake Coleridge is 11 miles long, up to 3 miles wide, and has an area of 18 square miles. Its maximum depth is 680 ft. It lies in the eastern foothills of the Southern Alps, but no major river enters or leaves it. This is because it lies on a depression formed by an excavation of rock and morainic deposits by a minor tongue of ice from the Wilberforce Valley during the latest major ice advance of the Ice Age, whereas the main ice and subsequent main drainage joined the Rakaia Valley. The lake is 1,667 ft above sea level, and about 450 ft above the Rakaia Valley 2 miles to the south. Advantage was taken of this difference of level in designing the first major hydroelectric power scheme in New Zealand which began operation in 1915. Subsequently the capacity of the station was increased to 34,500 kW. Water is diverted from the Harper River, a tributary of the Wilberforce, into the head of Lake Coleridge to provide sufficient water for the power station.

by Richard Patrick Suggate, M.A.(OXON.), D.SC.(N.Z.), F.R.S.N.Z., New Zealand Geological Survey, Christchurch.