OPOTIKI LIBEL ACTION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 540, 4 December 1890, Page 2

OPOTIKI LIBEL ACTION.

WE have now to hand a full report of the criminal libel action tried at Opotiki, and on which Mr Bates has been committed for trial. A republication of the evidence would serve no good purpose, and we have no desire to give additional publicity to a quarrel that must be injurious to a progressive little district like Opotiki. The action is founded upon a strongly worded article accusing the Rev. T. J. Wills, who is Chairman of the School Committee, of persecuting the school master, a frail old man. The strong language employed in the article cannot in itself be justified, and the law of libel makes it plain that the Justices did their duty in referring the case to the Supreme Court. At this state of the case it would be unfair to comment upon it, but the unique instance of a clergyman taking criminal proceedings against the editor of a newspaper has an interest of a kind, apart from the merits of the case itself. The natural question that presents itself is, cannot these heartburnings be removed in some way? It is really hard to comprehend the strong party feeling which has grown up in Opotiki, not a division upon political principles or in other matters where differences will exist while the earth continues to revolve, but differences on purely personal grounds. Surely this could not be if the blame were all on one side. A criminal libel action can certainly be only a further irritant in such a small community. The prosecution has more to lose than gain bv a legal victory in such a case 1 if that is obtained only one man can be punished, while all the. others will be further exasperated ; if it is not successful, the intention will still have been made plain, and the defence is not likely to be assuaged by victory after being put to so much expense. The outcome of the case cannot prevent great harm being done to the cause of the Church, and unfortunately, if the condition of things is permitted much longer, that harm will by no means be confined to Opotiki. If the Church authorities remain quiescent while such troubles rage the finger of scorn will soon be pointed at that body, for the public will not feel satisfied with the assumption that there can be such warmth of feeling without there being faults on both sides. A clergyman may have as good a right as any other member of the community to initiate libel actions in his own defence, but attempting to make a scapegoat of an editor can only do harm to the clergyman’s holy calling. It seems to us that a man following any other calling would be doing right in going to extremes.if he felt that his reputation had been injured, but a clergyman has more than himself to think of, and from the religion which he teaches it would be thought other methods could be found of pacifying his fellowmen, or that if a man found that he was like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole he would in time see that he might be of more service in some other place. For the Rev. Mr Wills personally we have the greatest respect so far as we have known him in Gisborne, and we cannot account for the way in which things have drifted in Opotiki, where a representative of one side has only to propose a thing to meet with strong opposition from the other, There must at least be great want of tact on the side of Mr Wills, and for his own sake, as well as for the sake of the Church and the i district of Opotiki, something should be

done quite different to the action already taken. If the intervention of friends is found to be of no avail, the Church ] authorities -should at any rate give Mr Wills the opportunity of a. transfer to some other district. In a new sphere of action he is a man who oueht to be able to do good work for the cause, but anyone who thinks good can be done ,by such proceedings as have taken -place. at Opotiki must have a very faint bonceptfon of the responsibility resting upon those who are at the head of affairs. Even going so far as to assume that the wrong is all on the si'le of the newspaper—which ns unprejudiced person .an -elleve—one would think the interests ot the Church would be better served by Mr Wilis beingtransferred to some other district tl an to have a continuation of bickerings that must be injurious to all. In saying this we in ho way bring into discussion th’e merits of the special case at issue : whatever bethe result of the case it must make matters worse so far as the Church is concerned. To show that the editor was not singular in expressing dissatisfaction (though he seems to have been very, indiscreet), it may be stated that before the libel action was commenced a note of sympathy with Mr W’yatt, the schoolmaster, was publicly tendered. It was signed by the Roman Catholic priest, by the former incumbent of the Anglican Church, by two of the Justices who subsequently sat on the Bench, and by over one hundred other persons. They not only expressed their sympathy with Mr Wyatt, but recorded their utter disbelief in the charges made against him.