THE TONGUE OF SLANDER. Why not Curb It?

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 278, 28 October 1905, Page 6

THE TONGUE OF SLANDER. Why not Curb It?

THE Government wants to curb the tongue of the wild person who make slanderous statements in the public hearing, and for this reason they framed the Criminal Code Act Amendment Bill. It was a wee bill, but what a bobbery it made in the House, and how the great champions of free speech did talk. The stonewall on that bill will be remembered always for the fuss that was made of a laudable attempt to curb the tongue of slander. Unfortunately the attempt was delayed too long, and the penultimate week of the session was an ill-chosen time to make it. The bill is a good bill, and the legislation proposed was wanted sooner. It waa the inopportuneness of the time and the sudden appearance of the legislation that gave strength to the protests of the stonewallers. But the principle can hardly be gainsaid. At present the words of slander spoken by the slanderer must not be printed by the newspapers even though they be set down exactly as spoken. If they are published, the man who has spoken them is not liable to punishment. It is the proprietors of the paper who publish without malice an exact report who bear the brunt. • » * The stonewallers who so assiduously fought for free speech don't worry about the antiquated libel law that makes it impossible for papers in many cases to set out actual occurrences. Did the opponents of that little bill stonewall in order to maintain "freedom of speech" ? Hardly. But, they stonewalled in order to maintain license of speech. If a newspaper is liable to an action for printing without malice a statement made, and which may be construed by a smart lawyer as a damaging one, and mulct in heavy damages, why should a man who fires off statements that are malicious, and are intended to be, escape? • • • Happily there will probably be few occasions for the use of the proposed legal machinery. But in those rare cases where men use the liberty the present state of the law gives them to attack business reputations and aim malicious slander at private life, it is surprising to know that there are any men who would oppose so just a measure. The press does not want "license," but it wants as much liberty as the platform speaker enjoys. It wants to be able to set down in cold type words spoken from the platform, and deemed by the law to be permissible if spoken only. There should be no distinction, made between word of pen and word of mouth. The opponents of the bill are virtuously indignant at this proposed "interference with liberty of speech," but if the license of speech,

of which we have during the past year been treated to several samples, is what they mean, they have failed to make out a good case, or, indeed, any case at all.