Company Criticism.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 130, 1 December 1897, Page 2

Company Criticism.

An action for libel was recently brought against the London Financial Times by tbe Wick's Type Coasting Machine Company, whose prospectus it had severely criticised. The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up said—" Gentlemen, this at least is clear — that when an individual or a company goes to tbe public with such an announcement as this, preparatory, an it is admitted, to asking that indulgent company to contribute large sums of money, tbe persons who take that step at once expose themselves to public criticism. Nay, they invite pnblic criticism, and it is not merely the right, bat I would go even further, and say it it? even the duty of a public journalist, and especially of a public jonrnalist who purports to be interested in and to advise the public upon financial concerns, to criticise closely and severely, avoiding misstatement of fact if they involve libel -avoiding imputation of motives if they are not able to justify them, bat criticising thoroughly- aye, and I would even add severely — the claims to public support which these persots are making. If there was ever a time in which a jury, in my judgment, ought to bold the shield of protection over an honest journalist, who is honestly criticising tho claims of these promoters of companies to pnblic support, this is the time. A journalist who, for sordid or interested motive, dishonestly attacks persons or companies, ought to come under the very strongest and severest condemnation of a jury; but the journalist who, honestly desiring to do bis duty, warns the public to scan, ana scan closely, the schemes that are presented to that public, and in relation to which they are asked for large pecuniary support, such a journalist deserves every protection that the law can give him' The jury gave a verdict for the defendant without leaving the box. Who will be surprised ?