CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 183, 12 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

NEW LICENSING BILL. The new Licensing Bill is a wonderful measure, and those who conclude that its provisions if enacted will leave the position as before should examine it carefully. The most important element is that a three-fifths majority of the whole of the electors voting throughout New Zealand may carry Dominion prohibition. There is also a separate ballot paper in which the elector may vote for local continuance or local no-license. It is clear, therefore, that should one locality vote for continuance and there should be a national majority for Dominion prohibition, the local desire would be effectually squelched. An electorate might presumably vote either continuance or no-license. If it voted no-license it would still be able to drink alcohol if it wanted to. If it voted for continuance, it might reasonably conclude that it would be entitled to hotels. But if a threefifths mapority of the whole of the voters were given for absolute Dominion prohibition, the decision of any electorate voting in opposition merely on local option would be nullified. Whether electors who believe in tkeir right to determine the local question will view the proposed new system with favor remains to be seen.

LIBEL LAW AMENDMENT. The promised Law of Libel Amendment Bill has been introduced by the Prime Minister, and if it passes it will remove some disadvantages under which newspapers have in the past suffered. It deals principally with the question ol privilege in reporting utterances made hi Court, Parliament and elsewhere, and under the provisions made, unless malice is shown, a newspaper may be allowed that protection which a politician, a judge, or a magistrate enjoys. That is to say, speculative plaintiffs will be debarred the right to attempt to make money out of newspapers which have published fair and impartial reports. The Press of New Zealand has always been particularly careful to avoid transgressing the canons of good "taste and fair play, and in very many cases where libel actions have been brought against newspapers and damages recovered there has been no evidence of either malice or untruthfulness. Of particular interest is the provision which will make it impossible an an action for a plaintiff to take a number of papers, as possible revenue producers, which have published a similar alleged libel, oiui after the other. This method of exploitation is merely speculative, and it is known that the advisers of plaintiffs have in many cases been the instigators of "snowball" actions. The man who carefully reads newspapers in order that he may find matters he believes are actionable and, who by pointing out these matters to persons concerned gains clients, is happily hit by this provision. A series ol papers publishing the same alleged libel under the contemplated legislation woulo. be "bunched" and the action (if it went against the newspaper) less profitable to the exploiters. The provision whereby a magistrate may hear evidence in defence of any alleged defamatory matter that, has been published, is a good one, and will give him the power, if he believes that a jury might reasonably find for the defendants, to dismiss the case. The possibility of speculative actions is not entirely done away with, and it would have been much more to the point if plaintiffs in an action were bound to give security for costs. This provision would probably be as acceptable to those of the legal fraternity, who are responsible for the beginning of mosi actions of the kind, as to the newspapers. At any rate the amendments would make gambling on the chance of obtaining a "rise" out of newspapers a less payable proposition.