THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 408, 15 March 1879, Page 2

THE LAW OF LIBEL.

(Wellington Chronicle.') One of the first things that strikes the new arrival in this colony is the strange frequency of libel actions. In the other colonies of Australasia, libel actions are seldom heard of. In Now Zealand there is not a month in the year passes bat one hears that a libel action has been entered, or that one is threatened. It not nnfreqnently happens that half-a-dozen are pending at the same time. Vigorously written journals, being the champions of right and the terror of evil-doers, are selected as the special victims of that engine of tyranny —the law of libel. There are certain newspapers whose courage is so weak that they never dare to attack an ■abuse. They may write of it in a half condemnatory strain, but they always qualify their blame in such a maimer that it is difficult to distinguish it from praise. Journals of this class, of course, never suffer from a libel action. Fortunately, for the interests of justice, the majority of the newspapers in New Zealand do not belong to this class; the New Zealand journalist as a rule hits out from the shoulder when he sees a wrong, and comes down upon the wrong doer with crushing force and merited severity. We need hardly say that such a line of conduct is absolutely essential to the true enjoyment of freedom. We think, however, that the public do not sufficiently recognise the importance of having a free press. John Milton thought so much of it that he wrote in defence one of the most sublime treatises that the human intellect has ever produced. The more freedom advances the more unshackled the Press becomes. We hope that the day is not far distant when public opinion in this colony will insist on the amendment of the unjust and one-sided law ot libel which is now in force.