THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1894. CRIMINAL LIBEL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1151, 23 March 1894, Page 22

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1894. CRIMINAL LIBEL.

The most absurd demand ever made in a Court of Justice or anywhere else was the demand made the other day to have the whole of a Joint Stock Company committed for trial. What made it still more intolerable was the further intention of having every one of these innocent individuals locked up among felons and criminals. Tins demand has been withdrawn, for what reason we neither know nor care. But the fact remains and always will remain to the scandalous discredit of the law, that a Law Court was asked to do an act of flagrant injustice, and that with such cogency that the Magistrate was forced to take time to consider his decision. The demand was for the punishment criminally of one set of men for the action of another set whom they could in no way control, and for whom they were not responsible. The very thought of such extravagant injustice makes the blood run cold. The demand for the criminal punishment of innocent men ought to be not only not entertainable but punishable. Any man making it ought to be treated either as a lunatic or a felon. But when such a de- , mancl is made it is actually welcomed, and gravely discussed in Court as just as right and proper as any demand for justice —a thing for the hearing of which Courts exist. We must say that we regret the withdrawal of the demand, preposterous as it was from a common sense point of view, because that withdrawal has prevented us from getting a competent decision on the subject. We should then have known whether our Law Courts are Courts of injustice as well as Courts'of justice. We suspect, however, that it is very possible they are Courts of injustice. If not why did the Magistrate feel called upon to consider his decision upon a point which ought to require no consideration at all ? This is the beautiful consequence of the Law of Criminal Libel. We express no opinion about the conduct of the men who sought to move that law against the Fair Play Company. But we are strongly of opinion that a law which permits such an egregious and gross injustice as the punishment -of the innocent for the acts of the guilty ought to be amended without delay. If it is not, we can easily imagine what may happen some day. Joint Stock Companies are often composed of very estimable and good people - —retired officers, clergymen of blameless lives, old ladies who owe the comfort of their declining years to the regularly paid dividends, hard working breadwinners putting their savings by against a rainy day. The law, as far as we can judge from the last case, is such that in the case of ;» newspaper company all these people may be some day sent to prison with hard labour because some writer employed by their directors has written a libel on somebody who insists on his pound of flesh at the hands of the law. There could be no j clearer case for reform. I