The evening Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, morning news and The Ecko. WEDNESDAY. MARCH 11. 1903. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 60, 11 March 1903, Page 4

The evening Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, morning news and The Ecko.

WEDNESDAY. MARCH 11. 1903. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

For the cause that lacks assistance For the wrong that needs resistance For the future in the distance And the good that we can do.

As to the value of Mr Seddon's public utterances, there may be room for difference of opinion, but as a rule they possess the uncommon merit of being plain and intelligible. However, we must confess that we fail to see what Mr Seddon mean-; by the remarks he made yesterday in Christchurch about the libel law. The general public probably do not realise the absurd and impracticable form that the law has assumed ill New Zealand. As it now stands, any newspaper that publishes a full and accurate report of a public meeting does so at its own peril. Any remark made at such a meeting that can be construed as affecting the reputation or th<* purse of anybody else can be made ground for a libel action- Bui the curious anomaly is that in the case of certain public bodies the person who makes the remark is privileged, and it is the newspaper, which in all good faith performs a public duty by reporting the speech, that has to pay the penalty. Such a condition of things constitutes at once an outrage upon the principles of justice and a serious danger to the well-being of the colony: and it is this iniquitous law that Mr Seddon does not see his way to alter. The deputation that waited upon the Premier in Christchurch had no new ground to break, nor could Coverninertt plead ignorance of the preposterous fashion iv which our libel Law deals with our great national privilege of freedom of speech. It is hard to exaggerate the injustice of such a statute or the amount of harm that it is calculated to do. We have said that we cannot understand Mr Seddon's defence of this monstrous perversion of justice; for the Premiers reply to the deputation only amounted to a statement that the Government decline to interfere. To say that some newspapers would abuse the privilege that they claim is no answer to a demand for the abolition of an unjust and dangerous law. Xo publicgrievance could ever be redressed if such an argument, were adnutted. uor could any public action be ever justified. Mrj Seddon might as well tell us that, no one siiall be allowed to drive a horse or ride a bicycle because some people will go too fast. There is always a penalty fixed by a law for the breach of its provisions; and newspapers inclined to overstep justifiable limits could soon be brought to reason. It is surely a weak answer to a demand for a law to say that it shall not be passed lest some one should break it. But the worst aspect of the case still remains to be discussed. The newspapers of New Zealand are not asking for some strange, new privilege which has never been accorded to the public j press before. All that the Christchurch I

deputation requested, and all that we j have ever required, is that journalism in j this colony shall receive the same rights J and the same degree of leg-al protection j as it enjoys in England and in otherj British colonies. It is almost! incredible that in this colony, which j claim* with some truth that it has cast ] aside all the' conventions and traditions that restrict freedom of thought and action in older lands, in such a vital question as freedom of Bpeech -vve should still lag far behind; England. By English law all bonaj fide reports of public meetings are privileged, so long as they are accurate and so long as contradictions and corrections are promptly inserted. That is all that New Zealand journalists require, and this much they have a right to demand, not more for themselves than in the interests of the community which they serve. It is rather disheartening to those of us who believe in Democracy and hold that it should be synonymous with Freedom, to find that in New Zealand, to-day it is necessary to plead for the recognition of rights that have been re- i warded as a national heritage for hundreds of years. Since the days of Milton and the "Areopagitiea" no Englishspeaking community has ever found a reasonable excuse for stifling freedom of speech. The liberty of the Press is supposed to be one of the popular privileges which Englishmen have mado peculiarly their own—one of the characteristics that differentiates all English communities from the foreign nations, ! which we generally regard with somewhat contemptuous pity. It would not be surprising to bear from M. or Count You Bulow the arguments that have been used to justify our present libel law. But it is a little disconcertk.g to hear them from Mr Seddon. We have mentioned Russia and Germany advisedly, for thes* are the most autocratic Governments of modern times, and no such restriction has ever been enforced against the Press in a freelaud ruled by a ivee people. Throughout the civilised world the Press is regarded as the most potent check that can be devised upon abuses of administration or infringements of public rights. Even in England, where the whole Government is an elaborate system of -checks and balances." the utility of such public criticism is admitted. In Now Zealand, where popular Government takes a more direct and less restricted form, there i, practically no means of bringing public opinion to bear upon the methods of local or central administration, except through the medium of the Press. As a matter of histurv. those who have fought against the liberty of the Press in the past have been either absolute despots oi politicians whose methods and manners could not well bear the light of public criticism. We refuse to class Mr Seddon in either of these categories, and, therefore, we still wait for some teasible explanation of his extraordinary attitude towards our ridiculous and indefensible libel law.