THE SEDDON-TAYLOR LIBEL ACTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 105, 31 October 1904, Page 5

THE SEDDON-TAYLOR LIBEL ACTION.

STATEMENT BY CAPTAIN SEDDON. < With reference to a paragraph appearing jn Friday night's issue giving Mr. Taylor's statement of the present position of the action of Seddou v. Taylor, Captain Seddon states that he understood the practice of inserting newspaper paragraphs .by litigant* while a case was pending was highly irregular, but as Mr. laylor had commenced this, practice he was left no alternative but to correct the wrong impression created by Mr. Taylor's paragraphs. Captain Seddon says it ia true Mr. Taylor was first called upon to apologise by a letter written by his then solicitors on the 21st December last. The long vacation ensued —continued until the end of January, and no reply of any kind was received from Mr. Taylor, but on the 17th February last there appeared in the columns of the Chnstchurch Press a statement alleged to be made by Mr. Taylor to the effect that when he read the information telegraphed by the Wellington correspondent of "The Press" regal-ding the threatened libel action against him, no one was more surprised than he was, that the information in the newspapers was the first and only on that he had received of the threatened proceedings, that he had not received t any request to withdraw any statement made by him on the subject, and consequently that the statement that he had no intention of withdrawing the statements and apologising was very premature. On the foregoing paragraph being brought to Captain Seddon's notice he assumed that Mr. Taylor's statement waa true, and that his (Captain Seddon's solicitor's) letter had miscarried. He thereupon instructed them to write again, which they did on the 20th February last. The only reply received from Mr. Taylor was one in which he stated in effect that the paragraph in question was inaccurate, but he did not in this reply decline to apologise, and Captain Seddon then waited until his patience was exhausted, and a writ was served on the 15th day of May, 1904. The action might have come on for hearing on the Bth day of August, 1904, or any suitable date after that had Mr. Taylor permitted it, and might have been disposed of in. a few days at any date suitable to him. He, however, invoked the Speaker's certificate, which protects him from being called upon to appear before a Court of Justice other than a Criminal Court for thirty days after the close of the session, and consequently Captain Seddon has had to wait with his <iction suspended in this way. The session will obviously close within a few days, and the civil sittmgs of'the Supreme Court at Christchurch commence on tke-2l»t November. This action cojuld therefore be heard at any time following that date, and if need be, as late as the end of November. On the assumption that Mr. Taylor was anxious to have this matter disposed of when his Parliamentary duties were all over, Mr. Stringei, as solicitor for Captain Seddon, some time ago wrote to Mr. Russell (Mr. Taylor's solicitor) in Christchurch asking whether Mr. Taylor would agree to the case being heard at these November sittings. _ The privilege of the thirty days is entirely a personal one to Mr. Taylor, and could be waived or curtailed just as he pleases. His answer, however, to the request to go to trial at the November sittings was delivered on Thursday last, when Mr. Stringer wired Captain Seddon that Mr. Taylor had intimated hia refiuai to go to trial in November. What Mr. Taylor strives to do in the paragraph appearing in Friday night's paper is to give the impression that? he is not responsible for delaying the trial. Captain Seddon states that the foregoing facts cannot be controverted. Notwithstanding, however, Mr. Taylor's refusal to go to trial in November, Captain Seddon says he is advised that he can secure a trial by a special jury in December, and this course he intends to adopt. ___^____^____