TIMES SUED FOR LIBEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13625, 19 December 1907, Page 7

TIMES SUED FOR LIBEL.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S LETTERS.

ECHO OF THE BOOK WAR.

The issue of Queen Victoria's letters in book form has had a sensational sequel, Mr. John Murray, of the well-known London publishing house, with his brother, Mr. Hallam Murray, having issued a writ, for damages for libel against Mr. Walter and the other .proprietors of the Times newspaper. .

The action, is based on two letters .signed "Artifex," which appeared in the Times following the publication by Mr. Murray of "The Letters oi Queen. "Victoria." This circumstance must add greatly to the interest of the legal proceedings now begun. Moreover, the subject of the " book war" and the Times Book Club is involved.

The first of the letters containing the alleged libels was published in the Times on October 19, when "Artifex," the anonymous writer, described the price (£3 3s) at which the three volumes wero issued as "simple extortion." He went on to say that " more than two-thirds of the price charged for the book represents an arbitrary addition to the natural price of tho book, which would be absolutely impossible if books were published under the ordinary competition conditions applying to other productions." The anonymous writer went on. to say that the literary contents of this volumo are "not Mr. Murray's either by authorship or by purchase." He referred to the unique jiersonulity of Queen Victoria, described her letters as part of the national archives, and characterised as " intolerable that a publisher entrusted with tho task of making them accessible to the public should treat them as his personal properly, and should put upon them a surtax of 43s over and above all reasonable remuneration for all concerned."

Finally, Mr. Murray was subjected to the gross imputation that "he had exploited tlio great personality of Queen Victoria for his own ends."

In the Times of October 26 was given an extract from a letter written to the Times by Mr. Murray's solicitors. In this letter appeared the following : — " The work' is not Mr. Murray's property he has been merely employed as the publisher, Rearing the cost of its production, and he will be remunerated by a fraction of the net profits." The Times said: "We willingly give publication to this statement, and regret any mis-statement or error our correspondent may have made." " Aiiifex," however, in the following day's Times regretted if ho had done Mr. Murray an injustice, saying that it was a mere accident that Mr. Murray's name appeared, rather than another publisher's, and finishing with this innuendo: "He is to be remunerated by a fraction of the profits. What fraction? A fraction is anything less than the whole."