28th June, RECENTLY attention has been called not only to libel itself but to the demand for libel as shown by the publication in the "Irish People." A certain number of this paper contained a gross attack upon the personal character of King Edward VI, and being summarily suppressed in consequence was the occasion of a motion for the adjournment of the House of Commons. 'I'he leader of the House characterised the article in question as foul, obscene, and seditious. 'I'he " Morning Post " says that such attacks are "an offence in the eyes of every loyal subject an injury to the whole public... a cruel injustice to the Sovereign himself, whose position prevents him from taking the measures which any among his subjects would assuredly take... and an injury to the nation which is humiliated before the gaze of Europe by having these cowardly and insulting slanders published abroad." What seems the strangest part of the whole matter is, not the publication of the libel itself—that is comprehensible to any one knowing the condition of Irish politics—but the fact that not a single M.P. in the Irish party was found to stand boldly up in his place in the House and denounce such an ungentlemanly act. It cannot be that all the Irish members are so devoid of honour as not to know what is and what is not consonant with the demeanour of a gentleman, Were it so, Ireland would be misrepresented in' Parliament—not represented. _1t is impossible to conceive any of the Irish gentlemen whom other British subjects are proud to reckon amongst their friends, assenting to or conniving at anything so mean and despicable as an attack Ring. But political life plays sad upon the private character of the
times, A fealing British Journal havoc with gentlemanly instincts at
(Liberal and Pro-Boer) quotes with approval a saying of Sir George Trevelyan's that "a newspaper may be as much the machinery of murder as a pistol or a knife," yet it charac-tenses the action of the Chief Secretary in suppressing the "Irish People" as not only illegal but foolish. Another Liberal organ, however, in quoting the description of the article given in Parliament as "scandalous, scurrilous, gross, coarse, brutal, outrageous, false, and loathsome," says:
"The epithets are strong, but we have the article before us, and are not prepared to say that they are exaggerated." "Truth" passes much the same verdict.
Libelssuch as these, however, would not be written if there were not a demand for them. For years past the public taste has been stimulated by personalities, "interviews," society gossip, and a dozen other kinds of tittle-tattle which must be spicy to be marketable. The usual result has come to pass; the strength of the stimulant has to be increased as the patient becomes accustomed to its use, and from tittle-tattle more or less true to tittle-tattle maliciously false the steps are neither many nor long. There are papers of the pariah type which live upon such questionable stuff. Others of mushroom growth look to it as the chief means of bringing themselves into notoriety. Libel then becomes a matter of bookkeeping—so much risk, much profit. A lost suit perhaps, an increased circulation. [t is all a matter of debit and credit in which truth counts for nothing and privacy for less. Nothing is sacred to these gentry. They neither fear exposure nor regard fame. Swingeing damages can alone be relied on to remedy the evil. As soon as losses become heavier than gains, and this as a certainty, we may look for a great improvement in the tone of the pariah press.
As it is there is a libel market or there would be no supply, and so long as the demand exists so long will there be found miscreants to respond to it As a matter of fact we have in the law of libel an example of legal action in advance of a great deal of public opinion. In another penkaly the same was the case with regard to smuggling. Many, even of the so-called respectable classes, looked on smugglers and smuggling with a very lenient eye. It was considered rather a clever and frequently a manly thing to cheat the revenue and defeat the coast guard. Something of the same con-ition of opinion prevails in certain circles at this day with respect to libels and libellers. Men accustomed to political strife see no harm in the most scathing denunciation of public men, and by no means confine their vilification to public life. Particularly is this true in those sturdy democracies, France and the United States. To what an extent it may go when completely unbridled was seen during the Dreyfus scandal. 1b is by nu means a pleasing prospect which is thus opened up to our view. Many men who have accepted the evolutionary doctrine in the hope and belief that it necessarily presumed progress to better things are being bitterly undeceived. The condition of a society which can tolerate writing of the kind which does duty in some of the degraded journals of these days is certainly not an advance upon that of the day when Addison's delightful essays brightened the pages of the first "Spectator." We have suggested pecuniary damages of the heaviest as being more likely than anything else to bring home to the libeller the unprofitableness of libelling. But som: thing more is wanted—an elevation in taste. So long as a sufficiently wide public can be found to gloat over obscenity, to delight' in filth, and to patronise the producer thereof, so long will there be men degraded enough to pander to such tastes. Libel flourishes at both ends of the social scale. It is rank and Inathsome among the dregs at the bottom, it if light and airy, but none the less poisonous, amongst the scum at the top. In this as in so many other matters, the middle strata of soviety are an example both to higher and to lower. There are to be found the homely virtues of honesty, temperance, and truth. There is the greatestdetestation of shams and falsity there in consequence is least libel.
entirely a matter of good taste. Eliminate the low-bred liking fur libel, and the libeller disappears.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.