EDITOR’S EVIDENCE

Grey River Argus, 2 April 1946, Page 6

EDITOR’S EVIDENCE

Auckland Libel Case AUCKLAND, April 1. The duties of a newspaper editor were outlined by Leslie K. N. Munro, writer of the editorial which appeared in the New Zealand Herald on September 12 last, and which is the subject of the action for libel against Wilson and Horton, Ltd., the proprietors of the paper, brought by Lawrence Gerard Matthews, secretary of the drivers’ union, who claims £6OO damages. The case is being heard before Mr. Justice Fair and a jury. Witness said he had been editor oi the Herald since August, 1942, and associate editor for a year before that. He was a barrister and solicitor.

After giving lengthy evidence concerning the dispute, he said he conceived it his duty as the editor of a daily paper to express the views of the paper on a matter of such moment as was now under discussion. He felt that this strike was the culmination of the leadership of Matthews since the beginning of January, 1944. He felt that Matthew’s act and propaganda, with that of other leaders, had misled the men to believe that they could not gel. justice from the Arbitration Court, that the Government was on the side of the employers and no fair and prompt decision would be obtained from the tribunals appointed by the Government.

It was considerations of this character that had influenced him in writing the leader and he thought it was his duty as editor and on behalf of the paper to express in strong terms the views' of the paper on an irresponsible strike and the grave responsibility of the workers’ leaders for that strike. 1

Cross-examined by Mr. Johnstone, K.C., Munro said he was a journalist of comparatively short experience. He was bred as a lawyer. He did not consider the article libellous. This was his honest opinion. He had had in mind that Matthews was gulling the men.

Witness would not agree with Mr. Johnstone that the information on which he acted was substantially what he saw in his own paper. There were no reporters present at any of the meetings of the union in September. The only knowledge witness had of what Matthews said at any meeting of the Union was what he saw in the paper and the inference he drew.