THE RIGHT OF CRITICISM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20086, 30 April 1927, Page 17

THE RIGHT OF CRITICISM.

PRIVILEGES OF NEWSPAPERS. THE CHRISTCHURCH LIBEL ACTION. (Spbcial to Daily Timks.) CHRISTCHURCH, April 28. Great public interest was manifested in the libel action brought against the Press by Cyrus Williams, engineer to the Lyttelton Harbour Board, in respect of certain letters criticising the policy of the board. The court was thronged throughout the three days of the hearing. The Press this morning has an article pointing out that it was defending a principle of immense importance to every newspaper in the Dominion. “It is necessary to point out that the case concerned not merely ourselves but every newspaper in the Dominion, and that in defending it, though we were fighting first for our own rights and interests, we have been establishing a principle of very great moment to the Dominion’s public life. Jndeed, if the action had been lost by us, the result would have been such an abridgment of the right of public criticism as it is not pleasant to think about. If it had not actually paralysed the press it would have made one of its most important duties so dangerous that only the boldest newspapers would have dared to carry it out, for it must be remembered that the duty of subjecting public departments and local bodies to public scrutiny, though it is urgent everywhere, is absolutely imperative in a country which has almost as many Government departments and local governing bodies as it has roads and streets. The important thing to us was, therefore, the vital necessity of preserving the right of public criticism and fair comment unabridged. There is, of course, no act or policy which a newspaper —rightly or wrongly—may think bad or foolish but some individual is responsible for it. As our readers very well know, we have criticised the policy and methods, not merely of one public body or department, but of many, and it never occurred to anyone, though it might have been otherwise if this case had gone against us, that our criticisms of these bodies were attacks, libellous or not, on individual officers or that they were proper occasions for an action at law. New Zealand would not be worth living in, it would be a place of tyranny and corruption, of reckless waste and hopeless stagnation, if its newspapers could not expose the policy and administration of its public departments and local bodies to fair but fearless criticism. To prevent its being such a place we have, as it proves, taken risks, and it is not a small matter, or one in which the rest of the community is not interested, that in defending our conduct—which is based on the belief that we can provide healthy criticism without its being unfair—we have preserved this very important right against further attack or curtailment.”