THE PROPOSED LAW OF LIBEL.
THAT newspaper proprietors or editors who happen to be Members of Parliament should back the new Bill for the Amendment of the Law of Libel, which has recently passed its second reading unopposed, is, if not excusable, at least intelligible enough. Men never think that their own immunity from law can be injurious to the community, and newspaper proprietors and editors, especially in the provinces, are exasperated by one genuine, though we fear unavoidable, grievance. They are held responsible for libels they never saw, never intended to publish, and are heartily willing to apologise for. The legal maxim, Qui facit per alium facit per se, presses with great severity, if not on the profession, at least on the trade ; so that a. man a thousand miles away may be punished for an act committed by his agent which he had expressly forbidden to be done. We do not see how occasional wrong from that cause can be prevented without introducing the much worse evil of sham editors ; but still, there is wrong, and any chance of preventing it is naturally welcomed. We are, however, surprised to see Mr. John Morley's name on the back of this Bill. He is familiar with the newspaper Press of many countries, he has watched the rapid growth of the practice of libelling, and he must know that this Bill, as Mr. Justice Stephen has so ably demonstrated, really places the conductors of newspapers above the law. There is no more moral excuse for a wilful libel than there is for any other crime committed in cold blood. A man in anger or haste may emit injurious statements just as he may utter oaths, with little sense of the import of his words ; but the acts of reporting, printing, and proof-reading imply reflection and coolness, and the man who prints a libel is therefore justly- held responsible. He alone gives the slander weight. He alone introduces it to an audience other than that which knew the slanderer and probably attached no credit to his words. He alone gives the libel a character of permanence, so that it may be quoted again years after it has been exposed, or punished, or forgotten. To exempt him, therefore, from responsibility is at once to condone crime and to deprive its victim of remedy against the real author of a most serious wrong. Yet that is what this Bill does. Under pretext of protecting journalists or newspaper proprietors in their task of reporting public affairs, it renders the report of any statement made at any meeting a privileged publicatiou,—unless, indeed, the person accused can be shown to have acted out of malice, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is impossible. In the majority of cases, the journalist feels no malice, or knows nothing about his victim ; and in the few in- stances where he bears spite, it is probably due to some emotion lurking in his own mind, some hatred, either political or professional or personal, which no human being except himself could either reveal or prove. There is practically no limit fixed as to the character of the public meeting, and no guarantee that it was not called for the express purpose of uttering defamatory libelA, which cannot be punished while they are only spoken, and are to be privi- leged under the Bill when they are reported. It is not necessary even to show, as Mr. Justice Stephen does, that such a privilege might be turned into a regular machinery for extortion. It. is enough to prove that the heated malice of any brute in a village meeting can be stereotyped and circulated throughout the country. Everybody knows that in local conflicts, especially in parish conflicts, things are said which those who utter them only half. believe, which are discounted by all who hear them, or are denied effectually on the spot, yet which, when printed and circulated among those who know nothing of the locality or the speakers, ruin reputations. "The parson," says a raging opponent at a vestry meeting, "do allus pocket subscriptions ;" and though the meeting, which knows the parson, only laughs, the clergy at a distance, who do not know him, hold him a man not to be associated with. We have purposely given as an illustration the commonest of charges, one invented merely to express dislike ; but every one knows how terrible such charges, especially when women or clergymen are under discussion, may be made. In some cases, and those cases of importance, there will, under the Bill, be absolutely no redress left, even of the most shadowy kind. On the Continent, it is the regular practice in public meetings of excited extremists to utter atrocious slanders on foreigners of eminence, often English Princes ; and under this Bill, if the Times reports them without comment, there is absolutely no redress for the victims, or hope of any. Yet the whole suffering inflicted, the whole evil consequence which may follow, would be really due to the Times, whose proprietor, editor, and printer are virtually placed by the Bill above law as completely as if they were Ambassadors or Kings. What is there in the journalists' function which should induce a democracy even to wish that such a new privileged class, protected from justice by legal immunities, should exist ? Solely a desire that state- ments clearly for its good should be allowed, and they are allowed under the existing law. Statements have been made during this very month, during the inquiry into the " sweating " system, which may cost wealthy tradesmen scores of thousands of pounds, and are clearly dangerous libels ; yet their publication is privileged because the state- ments are made obviously in the public interest. What more is required ? The liberty of the Press is already so nearly license as to be almost intolerable ; yet men, of whom as individuals we have nothing but good to say, deliberately promote a Bill which places the whole journalist caste, good, bad, and indifferent, outside the restraints of law.
We cannot even conceive where the answer to these arguments is to be found. Certainly it is not found in the very feeble letter of defence published by the Secretary to the Libel Law Reform Committee. Mr. Whorlow's main argument is that the responsibility for libel is not abolished, but only shifted on to the proper shoulders ; but the statement is not true. The speaker of a libel is only responsible for slander. It is the journalist who makes slander into libel by giving the speech currency and permanence ; and his responsibility under the Bill is gone. Mr. Whorlow, again, compares a newspaper to a Railway Company, which is only responsible for an accident if negligence can be proved, and implies that a journalist ought to be as irresponsible as the Railway Company ; but where is the analogy ? The Railway Company is bound to carry passengers, but a journalist is not bound to report libels. Because the Company is protected in a beneficial duty imposed on it by law, therefore the journalist is to be pro- tected in an injurious practice not imposed on him by any- thing except his own desire of gain. If his libel is obviously for the public good, he is, as we have already shown by a recent and applicable illustration, completely protected by the law. Mr. Whorlow's only real argument is that jour- nalists will not abuse their privilege, and for that he gives, and can give, no security whatever, the truth being that the masses delight in libels on known men, and that, conse- quently, the temptation of journals which appeal for their support is to gratify their taste. That temptation is restrained on the Continent by the practice of duelling, and in America by the use of the revolver ; but in this country, in the absence of law, there would be no restriction except in those feelings of gentlemanliness and decency which a libeller is necessarily without.
The remaining clause of the Bill to which Sir FitzJames Stephen objects hardly needs discussion. It runs thus : —" 3. A fair and accurate report published in any newspaper of proceedings of and in any court exer- cising judicial authority shall be absolutely privileged." No objection ever is raised to an accurate report of legal proceedings, except upon the ground that they are obscene, and the object of the clause is, therefore, to permit the publication of obscenity. What possible benefit can that do to the community, or with what face can legislators prohibit the circulation of obscene litera- ture, yet invest with "absolute privilege" the circulation of obscene evidence ? Mr. Whorlow says the Judges can, if they please, hear indelicate cases in eameni ; but he knows perfectly well that if they do, they are accused of exerting their authority to protect the rich ; and that, except under some precedents set by the Ecclesiastical Courts, and operative only in rare cases, their very power to hear evidence in eameni is exceedingly doubtful. In many cases, the Judges themselves do not in the least know the kind of evidence that is coming. In one of the worst trials ever reported in England, the Judge and the counsel employed, and the majority of the witnesses, were all as much taken aback as the audience and the reporters. There is no need, however, to pursue this part of the argu- ment, for the clause will be withdrawn. We may, we feel assured, trust Mr. Samuel Smith and his friends not to permit the backers of the Bill to stultify all the efforts they are making to keep literature as clean as the in- veterate pruriency of a half-civilised community will allow.
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