In awarding only moderate damages against the Daily Worker for
libels on Sir Walter Citrine and other Labour leaders, Mr. Justice Stable explained on Monday that he took that course because he did not want the damages to have the effect of putting the paper out of action; he did not want to shut out from the public Press the views of anyone, no matter how profoundly he might disagree with them himself; he did not want to prevent workers from reading in a newspaper the views which they held, or from being in a position to con- tribute their views to it. This is a striking and welcome asser- tion of liberal principles from the Bench, but the learned Judge would no doubt agree that some limits must be set to the mis- use of freedom, and he might agree further that they have been very nearly reached in this case. It was (according to the Judge's summing-up) established in evidence that the Com- munist Party of Great Britain, of which the Daily Worker is the organ, had to obey the directions of the headquarters in Moscow; he said that the libels were inspired from abroad and were unscrupulous in their methods; and he commented pointedly on the fact that the defendant, Mr. E. R. Pountnev, proprietor of the Daily Worker, had refrained from going into the witness-box, where he could be cross-examined. How far a paper "inspired from abroad" should have licence to support a foreign government and attack its own in war-time is a ques- tion over which the straitest Gladstonian Liberal might boggle.
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