The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 10. THE DIVORCE COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 229, 10 January 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 10. THE DIVORCE COMMISSION.

The Divorce Commission which has been sitting in London has been leisurely and long-drawn-out, mainly owing to long adjournments necessary to give all expert witnesses full scope for preparation and the eminent divorce authority, Lord Gorell, a chance to consider in detail the extraordinary mass of diverse opinion disclosed. As was to be expected, no two authorities seemed to agree on any series of points, and it is impossible in dealing with the intimate relations of men and women that there can be any definite collective opinion. As long as the world wags there must be misfits in life, and society can never be arranged so perfectly that these will become impossible. A more or less important phase of the discussion was the one that raged round the publication of the evidence in case of divorce. The evidence of the witnesses varied remarkably as to the harm such publication effected, and naturally many of the witnesses were men controlling great powers. If there were one point of agreement between managers and editors it was that they would be glad to be prohibited from publishing evidence in divorce cases because space was valuable and the daily trouble was not what to put in a paper but what to keep out. But as far as can be gleaned, few controllers of Heme newspapers are agreed that the publication of evidence in divorce is wholly bad. It was pointed out before the Commission that the most strenuous opponents of publication were not those people who were honestly served by the divorce law and emerged scathless, but those whose moral characters made it necessary that they should be pilloried by the publication of plain facts. When Lord Gorell mentioned that Germany, France, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden did not now permit the publication of divorce details, an eminent witness at once asked if his lordship believed that because of this the morals of those countries had been lifted to a higher plane than the morals of Britain, where publication still proceeded. Lord Gorell did not answer this question. The point that was emphasised very pointedly was that newspapers did not exist to give the people what moralists thought they should have, but what the people demanded. It would not matter to the papers of any country if the reporting of divorce eases was made illegal, for all would share in the disability, but the Commission has not yet decided whether it is better to pillory immoral people or to take from the people a cherished form of reading. There is, of course, no doubt that personal details concerning evil-doers of any kind are precious to the people. Divorce courts are always crowded, and a trial for murder will draw more people than almost any other form of case. Judges have a very wide power of discretion, and everyone is familiar with eases where judges have pointedly asked women to withdraw from a court, or have ordered the total clearing of the court. If individual judges are assured that the publication of proceedings in divorce are harmful to the people they have the matter in their own hands, for although presumably a judge has no power to dictate to a paper what it shall use and what it shall refuse, his wish would be respected by every paper of standing. Although there is no prohibition against the publication of divorce details in Xew Zealand papers, it is certain that of late reputable journals have taken the matter in their own hands, and that such dotails are very frequently withheld. If the newspaper reader scans the long lists of divorce eases published in city papers, he will find a lack of detail that makes the reading about as interesting as a patent medicine advertisement. Only occasionally is a divorce case thought to be of sufficient interest for verbatim repor ting. All the same, it is/conceivable that in many eases of divorce the with-, holding of detail mav screen persons who should be properly pilloried. Every newspaper man is familiar with the type of person who, having been a principal in a court action, desires that "his name be kept out of the paper." Such people rarely obtain what they wish, but almost by (jraimon consent graver matters may lie left unexplained. The managing director of the London Times, in his evidence before the Commission on Divorce, favored a system of reporting very much like that in operation in Xew Zealand, but which would be obtained by permitting the judge's censorship. Tiiere is, of course, no censorship by judges in Xew Zealand, but the result is practically the same, except in matters of extraordinary or unusual cases. It is impossible to believe that a general prohibition against the reporting of evidence in divorce would decrease divorce, or that publication of all details would have a very serious effect in the increase of immorality. If newspapers are prohibited from dealing with one kind of happening in which the public is wonderfully interested, they might easily be .debarred from I touching many other subjects snppositiously believed to be bad for public morals. Whether it is right or wrong to eater to the appetite of the -people for gruesome or "spicy" details, the Divorce Commission has not yet disclosed, and the finding of the Commission oil this point will be of very great interest. One

tiling seems possible, and that is tluit divorce will be made easier in Britain, for the reasons that all modern authorities agree that a man-made contract which may mean lifelong misery to the parties should be dissolved in the interest of society. No law can insist on compatability, and nobody yet has succeeded in making temperament and morals to order.