A BRUTAL LIBEL.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 40, 22 June 1907, Page 2

A BRUTAL LIBEL.

Mr Way Toes the Mark

ROBERT F. WAY, serf -styled journalist, may thank his own iinpecuniosity and the leniency of a Supreme Court jury for an easy though ignominious escape from the consequences of a most infamous and unwarrantable libel upon Mr C. J. Parr, barrister and solicitor. Way is the owner of a weekly print called the Worker, which has been indulging in unrestrained libellous excesses upon many other estimable citizens besides Mr Parr, but which has hitherto escaped punishment for the sufficient reason that its vituperative abuse has excited no other faeling than contempt in the community. Having no printing plant to distrain upon in the event of an adverse verdict, it has been safe from proceedings for libel, because few persons would care to embark upon costly litigation unless they were at least certain to recover their costs when judgment was given in their favour.

But with Mr Parr it was different. He bad no alternative but to institute an action. The attack was not only upon his professional reputation but also upon his personal character and honour. The allegation of the Worker, in brief, was that Mr Parr held a mortgage on a house of ill fame, and that he drew fifteen per cent, interest from a den devoted to the trapping and ruin of the daughters of the people. Also, there was in the article the innuendo that he used his position as a city councillor to influence the granting of a boardinghouse license to the establishment. It is scarcely necessary to say that not one decent person in the community who knew Mr Parr, or who was aware of the reputation of the Worker, gave the slightest credence to the story. Also, it may be added, the evidence in the Supreme Court showed that it was absolutely false.

Robert F. Way made no attempt in the Court to prove that his allegation was true. His audacity did not go to that extreme. On the contrary, he practically admitted in his defence that the story was not true, but pleaded that Mr Parr had suffered no injury by its publication, and claimed that in perpetrating this vile libel he was acting in the public interests.

But, with shameless effrontery, he had reiterated the libel after being warned by Mr Parr's solicitdr that it was untrue, and, when threatened with-, proceedings, invited the solicitor to send aloDg the writ. On the story told by Mr Parr, the loan he made was £150 at six per cent, to Mr 'Subritzky, of Awanui, on his property at that place, and, the security being insufficient, he had accepted as collateral security a cottage, which subsequently proved to belong to Mrs Marks. He had lent Mrs Marks no money on her house.

In the Supreme Court, Mr Way's bravado had so completely vanished that he ' did not venture to call evidence or even to go into the box himself. Indeed, the figure cut by this self - constituted champion of public morals was pitiful in the extreme. The Judge significantly pointed out to the defendant that he had been wisely advised not to plead justification, because this would have been an extreme aggravation of the damages. His Honor also directed the jury strongly but fairly on the defamatory character of the article. The verdict, which was a unanimous one, was for £75 and £30 costs. Whether Mr Parr will recover th« amount of the verdict remains to be seen, but, in any case, he is to be congratulated on the complete vindication of his personal and professional character.

For many years past, the respectable journalists of this colony have been endeavouring to secure an amendment of the libel laws, bringing these latter iato line with the more liberal and less drastic laws of England. But, in the face of cases of this kind, where a gross libel is published and persisted in right up to the doors of the Supreme Court, it is easy to comprehend the objection that is made against rendering it easier to defame the character* of the people. There has .sprung into existence in this colony a contemptible class of obscure papers, run by selfstyled journalists, which mistake license for freedom, and which, having little or nothing to lose in the way of property, do not hesitate to malign and defame the objects of their hostility without restraint or regard for the truth. So long as tb,is state of things continues, so long will it be difficult, if not wholly impossible, to secure any amendment of the law for the protection of the journalist who is inspired by disinterested motives for the public good and who has something to lose.