Editor's Evidence In Libel Action

Northern Advocate, 1 April 1946, Page 7

Editor's Evidence In Libel Action

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The duties of a newspaper editor were outlined by Leslie Knox Munro, writer of an editorial which appeared in the New Zealand Herald on September 12 last and which was the subject of an alleged libel action against Wilson and Iforton, Ltd., proprietors of the paper/ brought by Lawrence Geraicl 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 of 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 that now under discussion.

“MISLED MEN" He felt that this strike was a culmination of the leadership of Matthews since the beginning of January, 1944. He felt that the acts and propaganda of Matthews, together with those of other leaders, had misled the men to believe that they could not get justice from the Arbitration Court, that I the Government was on the side of the employers and that no fair, prompt decision could be obtained from tribunals appointed by the Government. It was considerations of this character that influenced him in writing 'the leader, and he thought it his duty | as editor, and on behalf of the paper, to express, in strong terms, the views of the paper on the irresponsible i strike and the grave responsibility of the workers' leaders for that strike. |

BRED AS LAWYER Cross-exam'ned 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 in mind that Matthews was gulling the men. Witness would not agree with Mr Johnstone that fhe information on which he acted was substantially what iie 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 in the inferences he drew. (Proceeding.)