Page 6 Advertisements Column 2

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1424, 26 April 1912, Page 6

The right of the press to comment on matters of public interest'was referred to by Mr. Justice Fhillimore in a case in Iho High Court, in which tho editor of the "Daily 'Express" was summoned to show cause why he should not bo committed for contempt fur commenting in his paper on a libel action entered against it. A speech was made by Mr. E. Tupper, a loader of the South Wales miners, which was criticised in the "Express." Mr. Tupper then stated that he would issue a writ, and the editor, he alleged, continued to criticise him. In refusing the application for committal, the Judgo said that the speech was dangerous, inflammatory, and wicked. .To say that a newspaper was to be restrained from criticising a man who was before the . public notice because he had issued a writ, with the date of the trial largely in his own power to fix, was a great restriction on the and would be fraught vvith danger.

The late Henry Labouchere, though he was an exponent of personal journalism (the "I" appearing evervwhere in "Truth" instead of the editorial "we"), was never punctilious about having his "copy"' edited by his subordinates. "It lin-i always nppenre dto me." he said, "thai. Hie making of an anliclo requires two persons, one to write it, tho nilnuto cut it down—and generally to cut out what the. fiat sum mott admires," ■- '•'