The acquittal of the Editor of the Morecambe Visitor on
a charge of seditious libel is on broad grounds extremely satisfactory. A verdict of guilty would have constituted a grave encroachment on the freedom of the Press. The measured observations of Mr. Justice Birkett on the freedom that may and may not be permitted to news- papers are of permanent importance. To say that is not to imply any sort of admiration for the article that formed the basis of the charge, with its unrestrained and provocative anti-semitism. But to say that an article is reprehensible and to say that it constitutes a seditious libel are very different things. In view of the unanimity of the jury on the latter point, and the rapidity with which it reached its decision, it is manifestly inequitable in the extreme that the Editor of the Morecambe Visitor should be mulcted in costs amounting to
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