A SINGULAR LABEL ACTION

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1306, 17 February 1883, Page 4

A SINGULAR LABEL ACTION

; A peculiar case is about to come be fore the Court of Queen's Bench, wising out of the cirenmstnnces which, in May last, caused Mr Herbert Chamberlain and, Mr Walter Chamberlain, brothers of the president of the Board of Trade;to\be blackballed by the iMorra Club! Their rejection gave grave offence to a section of the Liberals, and an agitation was instituted and supported hv strong political influence to transfer the function of election from the body of members to a committee. Notwithstanding that Cabinet Ministers deigned to strongly interest themselves in the matter, the !>roppßal was rejected, and it is aleged that a majority of members retamed the old rules in consequence of certain reports alleged to have been circulated in the club by Mr E. Lennox Boyd detrimental to the character of the two candidates for election. Mr Boyd, when applied to by Mr Joseph Chamberlain for his authority for the offensive statements, replied " Sir Robert Torrens told me your brothers had acted at Adelaide in a way which called for the attention of the club there," and Sir "Robert Torrens, when communicated with, admitted that this was substantially correct. The result was that Mr Walter and Mr Herbert Chamberlain have each brought an action for libel and slander against Mr Boyd, claiming £5,000 damage, The gist of their complaint is contained in the following extract from the plaintiffs statement of claim: —" With the view to retain the regulations (of the Reform Club) as they then existed, and to secure the exclusion of the pLintifft from membership of the said club, the defendant falsely aud maliciously spoke and published of the plaintiffs the words following—that is to say, ' The conduct of the Messrs Chamberlain was so bad at a club in Adelaide that a round-robin was signed urging the committee, to expel them. As, however, they were only there for a short time, the committee did not proceed further' (meaning thereby .that the plaintiffs had been guilty of conduot which justified their expulsion from a (dub in Adi-laide, and which unfitted them for the membership of the Reform or any other similar club)." The defendant demurred to this, contending that the plaintiffs had no legal cause to complain, and that the damage alleged was of too remote a diameter. Mr Justice Field, the judge who heard the demurrer, considered that the damage was not too remote mid indirect to bi the subject of an action, and so the quarrel will be fought out, The Times', commenting upon th j ße facts, ridicules tho idea of" twelve men being called upon to value—in'pounds, shilling, and pence—'the chance of being elected,' bad the rules been changed." It remarks that, although men do not now B"ttle their differonce-i with pistols at Wormwrcd Scrubs or Wimbleton, the reticence which the practice of duelling encouraged might be advantageously revived in modem society,