to be injured to bring actions with a view to securing an offer of money to stop proceedings, or, at any rate, obtaining something in the way of costs. The late head of a firm of solicitors, which has had a very wide experience in defending actions for libels in newspapers, testified before the Parliamentary Committee of 1879, that "eight out of every ten of the actions for libel against newspapers are brought by persons who have no real grievance and no means of paying costs if they lose, simply in the hope of extorting a compromise. No amount of editorial care can be an effectual safeguard against such actions.”*

This surely is an evil which should be remedied if it admits of remedy. There is, it is true, a provision in the County Courts Act, by which where a plaintiff has no visible means of paying costs, and the case appears to be one not fit to be tried in the High Court, the defendant can obtain an order from a judge that in default of the defendant giving security for costs the action shall be remitted for trial to the County Court. But this concession has proved of little service, owing partly to the fact that the County Court is not a satisfactory tribunal for the trial of libel actions, and partly because the order does little to put an end to the worry and expense of litigation. It is submitted, however, that the difficulty might readily be overcome by the adoption in actions for damages of a procedure somewhat akin to that which has worked so well in the case of criminal proceedings.

The procedure which we venture to suggest is as follows:-In an action for libel against the proprietor or other person responsible for the publication of a newspaper, the defendant should, after defence delivered, be * Evidence of Mr. F. L. Soames, 1477, 1516.

entitled to issue a summons to the plaintiff to show cause why he should not give security for costs. The summons would be heard before the judge in Chambers, when the libel and pleadings should be placed before him and both parties heard. The judge, if he was satisfied that the alleged libel was no libel at law, or was of a trivial nature and not calculated to damage the plaintiff, and that the defendant had offered such reparation as appeared sufficient, might order a stay of proceedings until security for costs to a reasonable amount was given. If the defendant had tendered compensation, the order might also be that in case the jury awarded no greater amount the defendant should be entitled to his costs, though perhaps Lord Campbell's Act renders such a provision unnecessary. There should be no appeal, or, at any rate, none beyond the Divisional Court, except by leave.

The usual objection to requiring security for costs from a plaintiff, namely, that it presses hardly upon a poor litigant whose character is of as much value to him as is that of any richer man, would have no force under the circumstances suggested. In cases where the Court is satisfied either that no wrong has been done, or, if any wrong has been done, that sufficient reparation has been offered by the wrongdoer, there can be no hardship in requiring a plaintiff who disregards that opinion to give security for the costs for which he will most probably by proceeding further make himself liable. Moreover, the enactment would not apply to cases where real injury had been suffered, but only to those where the injury is either non-existent, or technical, or trivial in character. There are in fact only two grounds on which such a change in the law could reasonably be opposed. The

first is that the judge might display partiality. It is only necessary to remind those familiar with such cases that if any leaning is displayed by learned judges in libel cases it certainly is not to the favour of defendants. The second ground is, that others besides newspaper proprietors are exposed to the attentions of the speculator in damages, notably, railway and other public companies. This is undoubtedly true, but the fact that an evil is very prevalent is no good reason why it should not where possible be alleviated.

The second grievance of those responsible for the publication of newspapers is their liability to actions for publishing statements for which the original utterers either are not liable at all or are not made liable. For example, a public meeting of some importance is held. One of the speakers, a responsible man whose words have weight with such an audience, makes charges against another person. The reporter's copy arrives just in time to be set up for the next morning's paper, yet the editor is called on to examine and decide on the spur of the moment whether the charges publicly and deliberately made are, or are not, "of public concern," and "for the public benefit." If he decides that the risk and responsibility of suppressing these charges, and thereby perhaps defeating the ends of justice, is greater than that of publishing, the newspaper proprietor is probably served with a writ, and has the expense and trouble of defending the action, while the original speaker, on whom surely the primary responsibility should rest, escapes scot free, either because he is not legally liable-there being no proof of special damage or because the newspaper proprietor is a better mark for damages.

The law on this subject has, it is true, been consider

ably modified by the provisions of the Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888, but it is still open to improvement, and the direction which the improvement should take is, we submit, not in freeing the newspaper proprietor from liability, but in making the original speaker liable. We do not for a moment suggest that the newspaper which publishes an unfounded statement not privileged by the law as it stands, is entirely blameless ; such a rule would be liable to gross abuse. But there is an immense difference between holding a person not entirely blameless, and making him alone blameworthy, which in this matter is the position of the newspaper proprietor under the present law.

Is there any reason why the person who under such circumstances originated the slander should not be made primarily, or, at any rate, partially responsible for it? This might be accomplished in various ways. The most practical seems to lie in the direction pointed out by Mr. W. Flux, solicitor, in his evidence before the committee of 1879. "I think," he said (Q. 1094), "that, probably, the most expedient thing would be to provide that in all cases where newspaper proprietors are proceeded against in respect of slander uttered at those meetings, the speaker of the slander shall be joined in the action, either originally or under the modern procedure, which allows a person entitled to an indemnity to join the indemnified in the action, and that whilst the newspaper proprietor shall for his part remain responsible to the slandered person, he shall be entitled to a remedy over-against the speaker unless there has been collusion between them, and that a fair report of spoken words shall not be libel, but shall remain as spoken, that is as slander."

With certain modifications, we think Mr. Flux's suggestion supplies a just solution of the difficulty. In the first place we see no reason why a slanderous speech when reported should not be treated as what it is, namely, a libel. In the second place, we think that the speaker should only be joined when it can be shown to the satisfaction of the Court that he was aware when he spoke that there were reporters present for the purpose of reporting the speeches. In the third place we suggest that the jury should have power to apportion the damages as between the speaker and the newspaper proprietor, i.e., while both would be liable for the whole damages awarded to the plaintiff, as between themselves each would be liable only for that part of them apportioned to him by the jury.

No doubt there are theoretical objections to this suggestion, but most of these have already been disregarded in recent legislation. The objection that we should in such a case be making a man who only intends to slander responsible for libel does not in our opinion really arise. All that the suggested reform would do would be to put a man who utters a slander which he knows will be reported in the position of one who incites another to report a slander. The latter is, as the law stands (Reg. v. Cooper, p. 88), liable in libel.

As will be seen from the various chapters of this work, the Law of the Press is in many respects sadly lacking in clearness and precision, and the legislation of 1881 and 1888 has on some points made matters worse rather than better. The Press Codes that have come into force in France and Germany, and of which a summary is given at the end of the book, may be taken as specimens of what can be done with very unpromising

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