SECOND READING. (Hansard, 27 November 1867)

§ SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLEN
, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that it was, with one exception, identical with the Bill which, had been introduced and fully discussed last Session. That Bill was introduced on the 8th of February, and read a second time on the 13th of March. On the suggestion of the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), it was referred to a Select Committee, which Committee included in its Members some of the most eminent and experienced men in that House. The Select Committee carefully considered and discussed the Bill; and, after making various Amendments in it, reported it to the House on the 8th of April. On the 25th of June—nearly two months after the Bill came down—it was discussed in Committee of the House, and 307 passed through Committee; but, as it was found impossible to take the third reading till the 7th of August, sufficient time was not left to get the measure through the House of Lords. On the Motion for the third reading his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) moved an Amendment, but the third reading was carried by a majority of more than 4 to 1—the numbers being 79 to 18. As it was understood that no measure which was likely to raise a discussion of a contentious character should be brought forward before the time of the regular meeting of Parliament, he should not have brought forward this Bill before Christmas if he had supposed that it would be opposed on the second reading. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had, however, given notice of an Amendment to postpone the second reading for a fortnight. This Amendment he hoped would not be agreed to. The Bill was an important one, and as it was substantially the same as the measure which had been passed by that House last Session, he was anxious that it should be advanced a stage now in this House in order that it might be sent up to the House of Lords, in time to give their Lordships ample opportunity for considering it. What he proposed was that the House should now affirm the principle of the Bill by assenting to the second reading, and he would not take the Committee until after the Recess. Last Session it was urged by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets, that the Bill was a "Press" Bill, and that as such hon. Members were afraid to oppose it. Now, of the sixteen clauses contained in the Bill, three or four only referred specially to the Press, and the remaining clauses referred generally to the law of libel. He had introduced the Bill on his own responsibility, and without the slightest communication from any one connected with the Press; but he was happy to say that, after it was introduced, it received the approbation of the Press of all shades of political opinion. The Provincial Newspaper Press Society, which numbered 160 different newspaper proprietors, had passed an unanimous resolution in favour of the Bill, and there had been between eighty and ninety Petitions presented to the House in its favour, and only two against it; and one of those was from a gentleman who was well known for his hostility to the publication of the reports of the pro- 308 ceedings in Parliament. The Press provisions of the Bill had for their object to extend to the publication of true and fair reports of lawfully convened public meetings assembled for a lawful purpose the same protection as was conceded to the publication of reports of proceedings in Courts of Law. He admitted that the clause involved a serious principle; but as no one would ask to have the privilege withdrawn from our Courts of Justice, he could not see that any bad result would follow from the application of the principle to lawfully-constituted public meetings, many of which were connected with the imposition of local taxation, and others had reference to joint-stock and other companies. With regard to the publication of the proceedings in Courts of justice, it might be said that persons could not there be libelled with impunity; but all knew that this was not the case, and that in Courts of Justice it frequently happened that charges were made against persons who had no opportunity of answering them. Yet no one had ever urged this as an argument for withdrawing protection from the publication of those reports; and in like manner ingenious Gentlemen, like the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets, might bring forward cases that might go to show that the publication of reports of speeches delivered at public meetings might have a very prejudicial effect; but when hon. Members considered the balance of convenience, they would be found to be greatly in favour of the proposed change. It was most important for the public interest that the reports of many meetings should be published, and the Press indemnified against the proceedings of malicious persons. According to Mr. Evelyn's recently published pamphlet, the Press occupied a most anomalous position, they were liable to be sued by persons who had no cause of action whatever, but simply to gratify a malignant desire to put the proprietors to the expense of costs. In the well-known case of "Davidson v. Duncan," which was an action against the Durham County Advertiser for a report of the proceedings of the West Hartlepool Improvement Commission, although the plaintiff recovered only one farthing damages, the defendant was put to £400 costs. The "Press" clauses of the Bill were very fully and carefully considered by the Select Committee last year, and although they might be amended in Committee, he doubted if they could be improved. The 309 Bill as it stood would protect a proprietor of a newspaper against proceedings for the publication of a fair report; but there was a clause providing that if a newspaper should refuse to publish a reply to any libel contained in its report of a meeting, the publisher should be liable to an action in the same manner as if he had published an unfair report. The clause rendering the speaker liable for what he uttered at a public meeting underwent considerable discussion in the Select Committee. In the original Bill it had been proposed that the distinction which at present existed between libel and slander should be abolished, and that a person who deliberately made a false statement at a public meeting for the purpose of its being published should be liable for an action for libel as if he had written it. That was the opinion of the late Lord Lyndhurst, and in that opinion he (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) cordially agreed. But the Committee did not agree in this, and the Bill now only provided that the speaker of defamatory matter not amounting to slander might be sued if he did not apologise in the same Paper in which the report was given. This clause was framed by the present Attorney General, and was accepted as a compromise by the Committee upstairs. The 5th clause was a new one, and by it he proposed to protect the publication of the reports of proceedings in Parliament, and when in Committee he should be prepared to defend the clause. The remaining clauses it was not necessary then to mention. The present state of the libel law in respect to costs was very unsatisfactory. In England, if a plaintiff recovered under 40s., he only got 40s. costs; while in Ireland, one farthing damages carried the whole of the costs. All such details, however, could be more properly discussed in Committee than now, if any objection were raised to these clauses. Then came three clauses making alterations in the criminal law of libel. At present any person who was libelled had three modes of procedure open to him. He might either bring his action, in which event both parties could be examined at the trial; he might, by leave of a Judge, file a criminal information in the Court of Queen's Bench, in which case he would be required to give security for costs; or he might, without any preliminary proceedings, send up a bill of indictment to the grand jury, and if he adopted the latter course he would be entirely exempted from all liability to pay 310 costs, however unfounded and malicious the prosecution might prove to be, and at the same time he could shut the mouth of the defendant and prevent him from being examined. There were several other inconveniences connected with the proceeding by indictment. For example, the defendant had no means of compelling the prosecutor to go on, and it was most unfair also that the latter, standing in the place of the Crown, had the privilege of challenging jurors to any extent—a privilege which was denied to the defendant. The present Bill provided that no one should be at liberty to send up an indictment for libel without a previous preliminary examination before a magistrate, and that the defendant should not be committed for trial unless the plaintiff or prosecutor gave security for the payment of costs in the event of the defendant being acquitted or the proceedings abandoned. Other clauses provided that every case must be proceeded with within a year, and that both prosecutors and defendants should be competent to be examined as witnesses. It ought to be mentioned, however, that nothing in the Bill applied to libels which were published with a view to extort money. There were some other clauses relating to pleadings and bills of particulars which it was unnecessary to discuss on the present occasion, and he would therefore move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, there were many inconveniences inseparable from a short Session convened for a particular purpose, and he thought the House was bound to guard its proceedings from the danger of abuse to which it was rendered liable by an exceptional Session like the present. Parliament had been convened for the purpose of considering the conduct of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the Abyssinian expedition, and it seemed to be a general understanding that the House would not be sitting in a fortnight's time, although, for his own part, he must confess he was unaware of that fact when he gave notice of his intention to move to postpone for a fortnight the second reading of this Bill. He might remark that he never made a Motion without first ascertaining whether he was acting in accordance with the practice and the Standing Orders of the House, and he 311 would now briefly narrate what had occurred with respect to this Bill during the present Session. On Friday night the hon. and learned Member for Clare obtained leave to introduce the Bill; but surely no one could have dreamt at that time that the hon. and learned Baronet intended to deprive the House of the period usually allowed them for examining the nature and effect of the measure. If he (Mr. Newdegate) had thought there had been any such intention, he should most certainly have raised an objection on the first reading of the Bill. Well, although he (Mr. Newdegate), on application to the Vote Office, obtained a copy of the Bill on Monday night, the Bill was not delivered and in the hands of Members until Tuesday morning, and yet the House was now asked to read it a second time. In other words, hon. Members had been allowed only about thirty hours to ascertain what were the contents of a Bill relating to a subject of great importance. The House ought not to sanction such unnecessary haste if it desired to maintain its high, character as a deliberative assembly—for it should be remembered that hon. Members were bound not only to consider the Bill themselves, but also to communicate with their constituents on the subject. The Standing Orders wisely provided against the House being taken by surprise in this matter, and Lord Eversley, in his evidence before the Committee on Public Business some years ago, stated that in all the improvements made in the conduct of public business, the object had been to let the House understand exactly what they would have to discuss, to prevent surprises, and to give some certainty to their proceedings. He might also mention that a proposal had been made by the House of Lords that when Bills had been considered and passed through all their stages in the House of Commons, but had reached the House of Lords too late to be properly considered in the same Session, the House of Commons should at the commencement of the following Session send up such Bills at once to the Lords for their consideration. It was only proposed, however, that this should be done in pursuance of a formal Resolution of that House and on due notice being given; and yet the Committee to which the subject had been referred, and of which the late Sir James Graham was the Chairman, recommended that the proposal should not be adopted. But the hon. and learned 312 Baronet (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) had not even attempted to proceed by Resolution, although he had endeavoured to obtain for an important measure an advantage which the Committee on Public Business refused to grant, even after the passing of a Resolution which would be the act of the whole House and not of any individual Member. The object was to prevent the Legislature being taken by surprise. In the case of the Bill before the House an attempt was made to take the House by surprise. The Motion for taking the second reading of this Bill, then, might be within the letter of the Standing Orders, but was distinctly opposed to the practice of the House; it was as distinctly opposed to the spirit of the Standing Orders. By the usual and approved practice of the House, a fortnight was allowed between the introduction of a Bill of importance and its second reading. Gradually, however, the House had been departing from the wise practice, according to which the principle of a Bill was discussed on the second reading, the new practice being to discuss principles in Committee, and he thought it time that a check should be interposed to the growing evil. Without going into the subject-matter of the Bill, and reserving to himself the right of expressing his dissent from many of the points mentioned by the hon. and learned Baronet, he contented himself with moving, by way of Amendment, that the second reading of the Bill be deferred for a fortnight.

§ SIR ROBERT COLLIER
said, if the Bill had been confined to the clauses which gave extended liberty to the Press, he should have endeavoured to expedite it by every possible means. He entirely agreed with the object of the 1st clause, which was to protect newspaper reporters when they reported faithfully the proceedings at a public meeting. But the Bill appeared to contain other provisions which he deemed to be in the last degree objectionable. There was the provision tending to restrict freedom of discussion at public meetings. The 3rd clause provided for the first time that a man should be liable for what he spoke at public 313 meetings to the same extent as if the words were written. He (Sir Robert Collier) held not only that there was a difference made by the law of this country, but that there was a fundamental distinction between words spoken and words written. Words written were taken by the law to express the deliberate conviction of the writer; words spoken had a different force attributed to them. Allowance was made for expressions used in the heat of debate. Besides, some men had not sufficient command of language to express their opinions with perfect clearness; and it was well known that a constant conflict of testimony was going on as to what words had really been spoken on a particular occasion. For these among other reasons he thought the law had wisely protected the privilege of speech, so far as a man did not impute to his neighbour an indictable offence, or something calculated to be injurious to him or his business. As for speeches calculated to bring men into contempt or ridicule, he had heard such, not only out of the House, but in the House; and a high authority among them had said that invective and sarcasm were the ornaments of debate, yet the object of invective and sarcasm was to hold their adversaries up to ridicule and contempt. Without, however, entering on this matter, he might say that because an essential part of the Bill tended to curtail the privilege of discussion in a manner injurious to the public interest, he thought it highly desirable that the principle of the Bill should be discussed in that House, and he advised the hon. and learned Baronet to concur in the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire so far as not to press his Motion for the second reading.

§ SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLEN
said, that after what had fallen from the two hon. Gentlemen he did not feel justified in pressing the second reading. If the hon. Member for North Warwickshire would withdraw his Amendment, he would then move that the second reading of the Bill be postponed until the 12th February.