Manufacture for sales tax includes transforming trees into commercially distinct logs or rafters with usable form.

Cutting trees into logs or rafters was treated as manufacture or production for sales tax purposes because the resulting material had a distinct commercial identity and a usable form different from raw trees. The analysis states that manufacture includes making articles by labour or mechanical power, or working material into forms suitable for use, and that the same broad meaning applied to production under the Act. On that reasoning, shaped logs or rafters were regarded as commercially distinct goods, and the process was held to fall within the statutory scope.

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Issues: Whether cutting trees into logs or rafters amounted to manufacture or production of goods so as to attract liability under the sales tax law.

Analysis: The expression "manufacture" was understood as the making of articles or material by labour or mechanical power, or the working up of material into forms suitable for use. The shaped logs or rafters had a distinct commercial value and a form different from the raw trees. They were capable of direct use as beams or of further shaping into furniture, and therefore represented an advance from the original form. Similar meaning was attached to "produce" for the purpose of the Act.

Conclusion: The process amounted to manufacture or production within the meaning of the Act, and the reference failed.

Final Conclusion: The conviction and sentence were left undisturbed, and the reference was rejected.

Ratio Decidendi: Material that is worked into a commercially distinct and usable form is manufactured or produced goods for sales tax purposes even if its basic raw nature remains unchanged.

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