THE SEDDON-TAYLOR SLANDER CASE. Its Political Aspect.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 235, 31 December 1904, Page 6

THE SEDDON-TAYLOR SLANDER CASE. Its Political Aspect.

AFTER a patient hearing extending over eight days the action brought by Captain Seddon against Mr. T. E. Taylor, M.H.B. for Christchurch, to recover damages for alleged slander, has ended indecisively. The jury gave majority findings on some of the issues submitted to them, but the question of damages was left untouched. We do not propose to offer any comments on the case in view of the intimation made that another trial is to be moved for. But if the scene which followed the close of the Court proceedings is to be accepted as any index to the attitude of the popular mind in the Cathedral City little surprise will be felt at the reported intention of plaintiff's counsel to apply for a change of venue for the second trial. * # » On the part of Mr. Taylors supporters, it was both unseemly and bad tactics, to say the least of it. The yelling, cheering crowd, carrying the redoubtable Tommy on thenshoulders to Cathedral Square merely because the jury had disagreed and the action had proved, abortive, bumps rather rudely agaanst one's notion of fairness, especially as notice had been given of the motion for a new trial Still, Mr. Taylor wasn't responsible for that part of the business any more than he was for the incident of one of the crowd dropping back from the triumphal march to* punch the head of a citizen who preferred to sneer rather than cheer * # * But he was responsible for haranguing the crowd from Godley's statue, and trying to make political capital out of the affair as against the man who he declared "was re^ sponsible for the whole trouble " So also by calling for "cheers for the scouts who knew how to fight" he was playing off the scouts against other sections of the New Zealanders who went to South Africa, and whose honour was affected by some of the evidence given in the slander action. This sort of thing is to be deprecated. * » • Captain Seddon's youth has been harped upon m these court proceedings and elsewhere, but his conduct after the trial at Christchurch, at any rate, shows that he possesses much good sense and fine feeling. He had to submit to being shouldered by some of the troopers who had served under him in South Africa, and carried m triumph to his hotel, but he declined the invitation to make a speech, saying that the case was still sub judice. * • • That is the spirit which should have characterised both sides. Speechifying by the principals in the case was, under the circumstances, quite out of place. And any attempt to make pobtical capital out of the affair, or to glorify one act of witnesses as against others, was both paltry and in bad form. It is refreshing to note that politics in New Zealand do not often descend to 1 the personal plane If it weire otherwise, the pursuit of public affairs would appeal less forcibly to the ambition and patriotism of men of ability and high principle.