THE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST MR. PLIMSOLL. (From the Birmingham Daily Gazette.)

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 186, 19 July 1873, Page 2

THE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST MR. PLIMSOLL. (From the Birmingham Daily Gazette.)

Poor Mr Plimsoll is in to.- it .it last The war- note has been sounded, and a rule has been gi anted against Lira by the Court or Queen's Pencil in the matter of a cimun.il information for libel We Uivo no desire ourselves to fall into the clutches of Mr Norwood, M. L\, and his foimidable .11 ray of counsel, but it does stukc us throughout the proceedings and lecit.ils of the affidavits of last Monday, that the applicant's line of conduct in pressing for the c iininil information is inconsistent with the position which he anogates to himself, and which his counsel claim toi him. Mr Norwood would represent himself as an honorable trader and shipowner exeicising every care for the lives and the interest of those whom lie employs. Let us giant this ; still Mr Norwood must own that numbers of persons — if not the majority — following his vocation, pursue a very opposite line of policy to his own, and that their proceedings deserve prompt regulation and supervision upon the part of the Government. No.v, could this consummation have beea brought about without such an influence as that exerted by Mr Plimsoll's book ? We doubt it. Reforms of the description contemplated by the hon member for Derby are not so easily effected. They pertain to a class of hidden from the public eye — known only to victims who are practically unable to speak for themselves, or to practisers possessing only power and influence, which they may employ to shield themselves under a cloak of silence and concealment. Against such influences nothing avails but to take the nation by storm ; and to arouse that gi eat voice of popular indiguation which is stronger than all tyranny, and monopoly, and privilege. Our contention is that Mr Plimsoll w.is justified in raising that voice, by strong and popular representation of the gross evila which the Attorney :G-eueral, in his very application of last Monday, was forced to Acknowledge as existent. There are, of course, bounds to the endurance which even a philanthropist should exercise, or to the suspicion of blume which the should incur, in furtherance of a reform affecting his own interests. We do not protend that Mr Norwood should martyr himself in the surrender of a personal or Parliamentary reputation when these are specifically attiickcd ; but he certainly might be nilhng to resign these into the hands of the Commission of Inquiry for which Mr Plnnsoll has asked, rather than to search that gentleman's records for imputations which he may accept us referring to himself, in order to set the law in operation to punish Mr Plimsrll. If such imputations were made in the honorable gentleman's startling book — and there is a lack of direct e\idence that they were — Mr Plimsoll's later withdrawal of the pns«nges in which they occurred might have been deemed, one would think, by a person whose interests and sympathies avowedly lay with the raising of the main question, a sufficient concession to individual feeling ; while to go to law in a question involving such interests upon the strength of hearsay evidence as to Mr Plnnsoll's remarks in the House of Commons smoking-room would appear a course somewhat unworthy the dignity of a member of the House. The direct charge brought by Mr Plnnsoll was in connection with the Livonia, a screw steam-ship belonging to Mr Nor flood, \vbich started for tho Baltic with n heavy cargo of iron, late in the year 1869, and came to grief shortly after sa'lmg. Here Mr Plimsoll does certainly insinuate a direct charge of recklessness against some one, although still he mentions no names He 'premises that no " prudent shipowner will despatch «hips to the Baltic later than the end of September." Mr Norwood had entered into a contract for the conveyance thither of 1500 tons of iron nt a Inter date ; and he combats the charge of lack of prudence through the affidavits of himself, of his mannging clerk, and builder of the Livonia and other shipowners and brokers But he does not contradict Mr Phmsoll's statement with regard to a shipowner who had previously refused the ta--k of transporting tho same cargo — Mr Hill, of Newcastle, whose captain, when asked five weeks before Mr Norwood's acceptance of the job " whether he dared venture into the Baltic," is alleged in Mr Plimsoll's book to have said, " For God's sake do not send us into the Baltic at this time of the year, sir. You might as well send us all to tho bottom of the sea at once." Mr Norwood pleads absence from home at the time of the accident — his affidavit's go to prove that the Livonia's engines had boen " carefully overhauled," found in " perfect order," and, moreover, " rofitted " before the attempt ; yet that they broke down through an accident but a few hours after starting is allowed, and to this fact the loss of the vessel is attributed. The public, which has so unanimously supported Mr Plimsoll hitherto, will, we trust, judge impartially between him and his accusers in any litigation which may ensue upon the publication of his ense.