LIBEL ACTION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 December 1924, Page 7

LIBEL ACTION.

ELLIOTT v. N.Z. WORKER, £lO DAMAGES AWARDED. MAGISTRATES COMMENTS., (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, Dec. 16. Judgment was given by Mr Page, S.M., for the plaintiff to-day, awarding £lO damages, in the libel eetion in which Howard Elliott sued the N.Z. Worker and John Glover, publisher, claiming £IOO damages- for allegedly defamatory statements published iii the Worker of July 30, in a renort of an address by H. E. Holland, ALP. In his judgment the Magistrate said the two grounds the defence raised wer«:

(1) Fair comment on matter of public interest.

(2) The truth of the allegations complained of, that plaintiff was seditionary and disloyal. In regard to the first ground of the defence, the Magistrate held that fair comment must he an expression - of opinion, and not an assertion of fact. Some of the defamatory passages in the article were admittedly not merely expressions of opinion, but statements of fact. The Alagistrate held, therefore, that the defence of fair comment on a matter of public interest could not he maintained. For the second ground of the defence the defendants relied for proof of the allegations on the contents of certain articles published by or with the concurrence of plaintiff mid on certain other matters elicited from plaintiff in cross-examination or proved at the hearing relating to plaintiff’s past actions. ‘‘The passages in - these articles and pamphlets are bitter and .intolerant sectarian attacks on the adherents of another church. Thev are calculated to promote feelings of illwill and hostility between different classes of- His Majesty’s subjects, and some of them * n n }7 opinion, seditious within the meaning!of section 118 of the Crimes Act. 1908.” .

His Worship held, however, that in order to succeed the defendant must prove the truth of all the allegations complained of, and after careful consideration he was of opinion that the second defence fell something short of this, and. that, therefore, the second defence had not been established. - Looking at the whole of the circumstances, ’ concluded Air Page, “I propose to award the plaintiff the sum of £IU by way of damages, with costs on that amount.” Judgment was entered for the plaintiff, with costs £4 18s.