Title: Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5, Issue 60 (26 December 1891)

Editor: Robert Coupland Harding

In: Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

Publication details: Robert Coupland Harding, 1891, Napier

Part of: Typo

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence

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page 152

Libel Actions.

The libel action Evison v. Thornton and Henrichs came before the Supreme Court, Wellington, on 14th December, before Mr. Justice Richmond and a special jury, and lasted three whole days. Plaintiff is manager and editor of the Catholic Times, a weekly paper owned by the Roman Catholic Archbishop Redwood; Defendants are respectively President and Secretary of the Typographical Association. The action was practically against the Association, that body having approved the course taken by its officers, and undertaken to defend the case. Mr Gully, with Mr A. Gray, appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr Jellicoe with Mr J. W. Poynton, for the defence. Plaintiff claimed the sum of £600 in respect of alleged libels in a letter and enclosure forwarded to the Archbishop on the 28th September last. The Catholic Times office is outside the Society, and negociations had been carried on for some time between the Typographical Association and the manager to bring the office under Society rules, but without success. The Association then addressed the Archbishop, but were referred back to the manager. The result was that the letters complained of were written. The Archbishop, on receiving them, made no reply, but handed them over to Mr Evison, who at once took civil proceedings against the writers. The first letter was as follows:

To his Grace, Archbishop Redwood.—I have the honor, in accordance with instructions, to forward enclosed letter, and to inform you that, failing a favorable reply by the 5th proximo, it is the intention of the Board of Management to publish the same in the principal newspapers of the colony. I have also to inform your Grace that members of the Board decline under any circumstances to communicate with or in any way recognize the present manager of the Catholic Times, but would with pleasure enter into negociations with any other person it would please your Grace to appoint.—Yours, &c., J. W. Henrichs. 28th September, 1891.

The enclosed communication was as follows:

September 28th, 1891. To Archbishop Redwood.—We have the honor on behalf of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Typographical Association to make a final request that you will receive a deputation from this body in regard to the Catholic Times office, which, we are given to understand, is conducted on the sweating system, inasmuch as a certain sum is paid weekly to the manager or overseer, who is permitted to appropriate to his own use and benefit such amounts as represent the difference between the sum received and that paid in wages to his subordinates. Your Grace will doubtless recognize the serious evils of such a system when we point out that as a consequence, the maximum wage paid to a journeyman compositor in that office is £2 5s per week, as against the minimum of £3 paid by other employers, and that an excessive number of boys are employed to the detriment of capable men who have families to support. and who are residents of the city. This condition of things is so utterly opposed to the precepts laid down in the recent encyclical of his Holiness the Pope, and also to the utterances of Cardinal Moran on the labor question, that we are tempted to attribute your previous refusals to receive a deputation to the fact that you have been wilfully kept in ignorance of the above, and we humbly beg to assure you that in making this request, we are actuated by no other motive than a desire to obtain a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, and that our request is preferred entirely in a conciliatory spirit. We trust your Grace will favorably consider our request, and honor us with a personal reply, as hitherto our communications have been referred to the manager of the Catholic Times (an individual who, at different times, has conducted a freethought newspaper, lectured on a freethought platform, and ultimately accepted the management of a religious newspaper), a degradation which we humbly submit we have done nothing to deserve.—(Signed) E. Thornton and J. W. Henrichs.

Plaintiff contended that the innuendoes contained in these letters were that he was not a fit and proper person to hold the position of manager of the Catholic Times, and that he had dishonestly and contrary to his duty kept the Archbishop in ignorance of what was going on in the office of his paper with the object of making a profit out of the funds supplied him for the purpose of carrying on the business: which statements were false, malicious and injurious to the plaintiff in his character and reputation. The defendants in their pleadings denied that the innuendoes alleged were implied or intended in the letters; that the actual statements therein contained were true, and published bonâ fide for the benefit of the trade; and further, that under these circumstances, the communications were privileged. A great amount of evidence, mostly quite irrelevant, was taken. The whole of the first day was occupied with the opening of the case and the examination of the plaintiff. He stated that he had been connected with the paper since 1889. He was at first editor only, at a salary of £5; afterwards editor and manager, receiving £7. Soon after he joined the staff, an arrangement was made by the late Mr Bunny, by which the publisher, Mr Cooper, was to receive a fixed sum weekly, out of which he was to pay wages and produce the paper. This was objected to by the Typographical Society, and witness detailed the negociations between the Society and himself. No arrangement was come to, and on the Archbishop refusing to receive a deputation from the Society, the letters were written. Mr Jellicoe's cross-examination chiefly related to witness's connexion some seven years ago with a paper entitled the Rationalist, from which long extracts were read by counsel: some of these were exceedingly gross; others directly attacked dignitaries of the Church of Rome. Witness said that, though editorially responsible for the contents of the paper, he had no power to veto matter contributed by the proprietors, and disapproved of much that had thus appeared. Had never been an atheist, but had lectured and written on free-thought under the name of « Ivo. » Had long ago given up the freethought propaganda, believing that it was productive of far more harm than good, and had considerably modified his views during the past few years. Had not concealed from the Archbishop the fact that he had been a freethought lecturer and writer.—On the second day, Archbishop Redwood was examined. He was aware of the arrangement with Mr Cooper, and approved of it. Thought the letter of the Typographical Society a gross libel on the plaintiff; and the portion relating to the Pope's encyclical a compound of impertinence and absurdity. He was severely « heckled » in cross-examination by Mr Jellicoe on the subject of « sweating. » He did not consider that the term could be applied to his office, though it paid a lower rate of wages than the rest. It paid fair wages, and that being the case, he saw no harm in underbidding the other printers in the rates charged for work. By « sweating, » he understood grinding the faces of the poor, and making unholy profit thereby. Was quite aware of plaintiff's former connexion with the Rationalist; but understood that he had since changed his views. Plaintiff had nothing to do with the religious matter in the paper—that was contributed by others. Had heard the articles read in court from the Rationalist, and still considered Mr Evison a fit person to edit the paper.—Frederick Stephen Cooper deposed that he received £14 8s per week to compose and print the paper. The highest wage paid to any of the men, except one, was £2, the exception being £2 5s. He charged for work according to his own judgment.— John Rutherford Blair, master printer, considered the letters very damaging to plaintiff. He thought the arrangement with the publisher of the paper a good one—in fact, he believed that he had suggested it to Mr Bunny, who complained to him that the cocould not be made to pay. He did not think that the rate of wages paid in the office, or the rates at which they took their work, affected the printing trade of the town in the slightest degree. —Mr Jellicoe, before opening the case for the defence, asked for a nonsuit on the grounds, first, that the letters were not per se defamatory, and second, that they were privileged. Both points were overruled. He then called the principal members of the Typographical Association, who detailed at length the system adopted in the Archbishop's office, and the efforts made by the Society to bring it into conformity with union rules. Each witness gave a different definition of the term « sweating. » The case of a man named Finucane was specially dwelt upon. He had served his apprenticeship in another office, and had been in the receipt of the full wage of £3. Being long out of work, he had been compelled by necessity to apply to the Catholic Times, where he received £1 12s. This got him into difficulties with his union; but on explanation of the circumstances they had forborne to inflict the usual penalties, endeavoring instead, to bring pressure to bear on the Archbishop. After leaving the office, Finucane obtained a situation on a morning newspaper at the rate of £3. All these witnesses, in answer to Mr Jellicoe, explained the term « degradation » in the letter as referring to Mr Evison's connexion with the Rationalist. One of them, Mr Rigg, put it very strongly: he considered himself degraded by being referred to a man whom he considered « a religious adventurer, who would sell his religious belief to the highest bidder. » —R. C. Harding, master printer, was called and examined on two points— the innuendo, and the precise meaning of « sweating. » On the first point, he said that he thought the attack upon the plaintiff was only incidental—that the letters were to a certain extent ironical, and really directed against the Archbishop. He took them to mean: « If you still refuse us a personal interview, we will proclaim to the world that your religious paper is edited by a freethinker, and that you, notwithstanding the Pope's encyclical, conduct a sweating establishment. » He defined sweating as the system of sub-letting work, by which the master, manager, or overseer divested himself of direct responsibility to the wage-earners. Judged by this standard the Catholic Times office was a sweating establishment. The system was open to very grave abuses, and necessarily tended to the lowering of wages and of the standard of work.—Counsel having addressed the Court, his Honor summed up carefully and at great length. He said that much irrelevant matter had been introduced, as the jury were not there to try the merits of Trade Unions, nor the manner in which the Catholic Times office was conducted. The officers of the Society were evidently superior men, their calling was an honorable one, and their object to maintain the standard of their profession, most page 153laudable. The question was, whether the letters were defamatory. There was much force in the construction placed upon them by one of the witnesses—that the Archbishop was really aimed at, and that the writers had adopted what they thought a polite method of throwing the Pope's encyclical at his head The same idea had occurred to him; but this was not the line taken by the defence. Mr. Jellicoe had spoken of plaintiff as a humbug, and charged him with the most detestable of vices—hypocrisy. The sting of the whole letter lay in the concluding assertion that the writers felt it a degradation to be referred to Mr Evison. The question whether the letters were defamatory was entirely one for the jury.—The jury, after an absence of half-an-hour, returned a verdict for plaintiff, with £50 damages. His Honor certified for a special jury, and second counsel for two extra days' hearing.

The case Bax v. Pelorus Guardian Company, to which we referred in our last, came off early this month in the Supreme Court, Blenheim, before his Honor Mr Justice Richmond and a special jury, and occupied two days. The evidence, as reported, would fill some three pages of our paper, and it is impossible to read it without feelings of indignation mingled with surprise that the plaintiff should ever have taken the case into court. The evidence adduced by the defence was simply overwhelming. Mr Gaskell, the secretary of the company, who died at the hotel, was a steady young man, and highly respected. While away from home on business he was seized with typhoid, and was, partly on the recommendation of the local doctor, sent to plaintiff's hotel. The hotelkeeper had formerly been a hospital warder, and his unremitting care and attention in that capacity had been such that the doctor thought that the patient could not be in better hands. Plaintiff's duties as hotelkeeper, however, were not quite compatible with those of nurse. Mr Mills, one of the managers of the paper, visited Blenheim, and described himself as « astounded » to find the patient in the depth of winter in a cold draughty lumber-room, the only warmth being derived from an « Aurora » lamp, the fumes from which were suffocating. Fortunately for the patient, the young woman to whom he was engaged, and her mother, hearing of his serious illness, went across from Wellington and watched over him to the end, though regarded with no very favorable eyes by those in charge. In the long winter nights, the women supplemented the scanty bedclothing with their own flannel undergarments. The Guardian, as we mentioned in our last, published a pretty strong article on the subject, and the result was an action for £1000 damages, which plaintiff afterwards offered to compromise for £50. The jury gave a verdict for one farthing, under the erroneous impression that it could not carry costs. They were not the only people who were surprised when his Honor certified for costs, though on the lowest scale. (Juries should make a note.) The result has been that the newspaper, for simply discharging a plain public duty, has been put to a cost of about £100. A public subscription was at once set on foot to pay the costs and expenses.