The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, October 2, 1890. “ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE.”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 513, 2 October 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, October 2, 1890. “ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE.”

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Much to the chagrin of a certain persevering trade rival the result of the copyright cases has been a bitter pill to swallow. “ The law has been found to be on the side of justice,” the attempt to crush out the Standard by involving it in a host of technicalities has been foiled, and some new scheme will be found necessary if the individuals who shall be nameless are ever to succeed in their object. The decision in the first case was reversed on appeal, and substantial costs allowed to the appellant. The second case, which was the outcome of an arrangement between the parties, so as to decide a technical point—as was well known to a certain journal that finds it convenient to pretend ignorance for the occasion—was upheld, without a fine or costs being allowed by the Judge. The nature of the cases has previously been referred to, and in the ordinary course of things we should accept the victory without further concern as to the discomfiture of the rival who was at the bottom of the prosecution. But a journal which is not noted for its zeal in dealing with public matters, and which only ventures to use emphatic language when it is attacking a trade opponent from whom it can expect no gain, has attempted to convert the thing into a political affair, and by a new-found activity has sought to prove that it can be of some service to the political party which it claims to represent. That party is welcome to all it can gain by such miserable tactics, if indeed it is willing to father them.

In the circumstances we may perhaps be justified in making a few further remarks on the copyright cases, to enable anyone who may be in doubt to peer through the cloud of dust that has been beaten up to conceal the instigators of the prosecution. The Press Association has succeeded in squeezing the great Reuter’s agency out of the field in New Zealand, and no journal can join the Association without paying such a rate and complying with such conditions, as the receiving of everything that is sent, as are not always acceptable. The Association has acquired so much power as to enable it to get a special Act passed for its benefit. That Act distinctly states that the time of receipt must be set out on a telegram, so that any person who purchases a paper may know when its contents are actually his property. In the case in question the message was not copyrighted, and any person who bought a copy of the Auckland Star (from which the item was taken) had a perfect right to extend its publication. That is really the whole thing in a nutshell, and for anyone to say that a person having a copy of the paper was acting wrongly, from a moral point of view, in sending such a telegram is tantamount to saying that a person who purchases a copy of this journal has no right to acquaint his friends at a distance with any of its contents. The imputation, too, is remarkably characteristic emanating from a Pecksniffian print that has frequently been bowled out for cribbing columns of the production of other editors’ brains, without giving a single word of acknowledgment; but even imputed from such a source a fault might be acknowledged if it was shown to exist. We have no doubt the manager of the Association took what steps appeared to him right after he had been prompted to act in the matter, though the decision of the Judge has shown that it is not always wise to place too much reliance on statements that are the outcome of trade jealousies. After Mr Atack had arrived in Gisborne he came to us in a straightforward manner, and endeavored to settle the difficulties, but the time was so short that nothing could be done before the cases came on for hearing. Then the decision was such an extraordinary one that we felt it could not be quietly submitted to, and so the thing was allowed to go to the higher Court, it being arranged in open Court that both sides would abide by the decision in the first case so. far as the other charges were concerned. Subsequently it was agreed between counsel that a kecoud conviction should be entered

up by consent, and then be appealed against so as to enable the Association to ascertain its real position. The result of that appeal was of no importance to us, unless costs had been allowed ; but not only were no costs allowed, but the nominal fine was remitted, so that both parties to the dispute ought to be satisfied. We are not so sure that the instigator of the first charge will be satisfied, nor do we think that the rank hypocrisy it has assumed will serve to hoodwink anyone who can review the simple facts. The anxiety that was shown in giving the result of an arranged case even before it had come on in Court, reporting it in a misleading manner, and then suppressing the true result, are not points that bespeak honest journalism, and such conduct is discreditable to any political party—if there is such an one inexistence —that would feel satisfied by those means of advocating its cause. Unscrupulous actions of that kind are certain sooner or later to recoil on the perpetrators,