OFFENSIVE PUBLICATIONS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43100, 4 June 1907, Page 4

OFFENSIVE PUBLICATIONS.

The law relatng to obscene publications Was explained by the AttorneyGeneral to a deputation organised bv the Citizens’ Anti-Gambling Committee at Wellington The committee, it was explained, had taken alarm at the failure of a certain jnewspapecr on the ground! that as the manager Was absent at the time ’of the publication of what was alleged to be an obscene article, it could not be brought home to him that he understood or realised what was -being published That was the subject which they desired to bring under the notice of the Attorney General, as if the law was reallv as it appeared from that judgment, all that was necessc" for a man to escape judgment was for him to he absent from the town for a few hours while the obscene publication was bein sr published. The Attorney-General (Hon 1 . Dr. Findlay), in explaining the la,W. said that the Offensive Publications Act. 1905, Was one of the most drastic statutory provisions which had been placed on the statute book of any British colonr. It provided that ismorance of th» contents of a periodical or a newspaper was not in itself a defence. Before a man could escape from suich a charge as was referred to he must show that he did not in fact know the contents, that there was no reasonable ground for his knowing, and that his ignorance was reasonable. In his judgment there was upon the statute book as complete a!.aheck to that kind of thing as thev were likely to get, if the law was administered as it ought to be administered.