THE LIBEL BILL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7301, 3 December 1910, Page 4

THE LIBEL BILL

After many years a reasonable Libel Bill has got to the statute hook. It enlarges the area of privilege necessary to true freedom of the press to almost the same extent that is allowed in nearly every other country of the Empire, , It deals with "chain" actions in such tt way as to prevent them from being gold mines to the unprincipled and sources of disastrous expense to the newspapers, and it places criminal libel on the same footing ns all other offences against the criminal law, in the matter of the preliminary examination by the magistrate who has power to dismiss when he does not see a primn facie case to send to trial. Had tho area of privilege been extended to public meetings, and had there been a provision for the right to fight unscrupulous blackmailers by demanding security for costs, the Bill would ha nearly perfect. The Council yesterday added a clause dealing, with criminal libel. This offence is by that clause made subject to summary conviction before a magistrate. It permits truth and public benefit to be valid defences; it requires that tho public benefit shall bo proved before the question of truth may bo gone into, and it provides a penalty up to one hundred pounds or three months’ imprisonment in case of conviction. This is a handy addition to tho existing law. It can not hurt anyone but a scoundrel, and that such a person should be prevented from persecuting fellow citizens no one will deny. When the pamphleteer becomes a public nuisance it is time to devise machinery for his suppression. Of course, a certain class of pamphlet, such as the one which has been lately in evidence as a target for tho condemnation of , every decent man in the country, will bo reached by this clause, and that is the best thing about it.