The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1912. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 123, 11 October 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1912. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

The allegation that Mr. T. Y. Seddon had improperly used the telegraph service of the country for electioneering purposes, has, a* we anticipated at the time, been emphatically disproved, and the Dominion stands once more convicted of a grave breach of journalistic ethics. Admirably as the Dominion is conducted in many respects, it has earned a somehvhat unwholesome reputation for allowing its zeal to outstrip its discretion, and the ardor of its political youth has led it into several very glaring laches. The older school of journalism was always taught to verify its facts before making statements that were detrimental to even such unimportant persons as its political opponents, but a "semi-yellow" system has been evolved of late years under which certain papers, fortunately few in number, in their haste to make good, are prone to sentence a man first and try him afterwards. The Dominion, we are afraid, must be ranked as one of the principal offenders in this respect. Nobody, of course, for one moment believed the allegations' that were made against Mr. Seddon, for they practically carried their own refutation, unless we were to believe that the public service is utterly corrupt and under the influence of a sort of political Tammanyism that is quite unthinkable in a democratic country. The incident in question is, of course, purely one for Mr. Seddon and the Dominion proprietary, and we should say that the journal lias beep singularly fortunate in being allowed to condone the error of its indiscretion by a particularly abject apology, thanks to the magnanimity of Mr. Seddon. But it still lias an unfortunate bearing on journalism in the country generally. For a long time past there has been an agitation on the part of the New Zealand Press to secure an amendment of the libel law, bringing it into line with the English and Australian law so as to allow of the privileged verbatim reporting of all matters of public interest. As the law stands now, even the proceedings of Parliament are not privileged, whilst as in the case of a bankruptcy meeting held in New Plymouth on Tuesday the report had to be judiciously and carefully sub-edited before being presented to the public in as comprehensive a form as the law would allow. At present the average journalist, seeking to do his duty by the public is liable to be shot at by the veriest man of straw if he should commit any technical breach of a singularly drastic and unfair statute. Parliament has been disposed to look with a not unfriendly eye ■ upon a suggestion that the law should be amended in the direction of granting a greater discretion and privilege to the Press of the country, but we are afraid I that members will not be disposed to [look so kindly upon the proposal if they are liable to be subjected to such gross indiscretions as this latest effort of the Dominion. We have been disposed to

look to the large metropolitan papers for a lead in this matter, and it must be admitted that these journals, generally speaking, have established as high and as dignified a standard of journalism as is to be found anywhere in the world. This, of course, makes such breaches of good taste as that to which the Dominion lias, pleaded guilty all the more deplorable. The paper can. of course, mind its own business (along with other people's), but it is unfortunately only too true that-its indiscretions are liable

to reflect upon the -whole. Press of the country. Party politics are all very well in their way, but a reputable journal ought surely to be able to distinguish between partisanship and bias. Probably, with a little more maturity our contemporary may come to realise this fact.