Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 40


     
     1        taken in isolation, it bears a meaning different from that
     2        which it means when it is placed in its proper context,
     3        having regard to the mode of publication.
     4
     5        The speech goes on:
     6
     7             "The locus classicus is a passage from the
     8             judgment of Alderson B. in Chalmers v. Payne,
     9             who said:
    10             'But the question here is, whether the matter be
    11             slanderous or not, which is a question for the
    12             jury; who are to take the whole together and say
    13             whether the result of the whole is calculated to
    14             injure the plaintiff's character.  In one part
    15             of this publication something disreputable to
    16             the plaintiff is stated, but that is removed by
    17             the conclusion; the bane and antidote must be
    18             taken together.'
    19             This passage has been so often quoted that it
    20             has become almost conventional jargon among
    21             libel lawyers to speak of the bane and the
    22             antidote. It is often a debatable question which
    23             the jury must resolve whether the antidote is
    24             effective to neutralise the bane and in
    25             determining this question the jury may certainly
    26             consider the mode of publication and the
    27             relative prominence given to different parts of
    28             it."
    29
    30        We do not, ourselves, accept for a moment that this present
    31        case before your Lordship is a bane and antidote case.  If
    32        I may, I will develop that submission in a few moments'
    33        time.
    34
    35        I cite that passage simply for the rule that it is not
    36        permissible for either party to try to read some part of
    37        the publication out of context.
    38
    39        My Lord, then on page 455 there is a citation from
    40        Slim v. Daily Telegraph at letter B down to the end of G,
    41        which I will not read, except for the middle passage at E,
    42        where Diplock L.J. said:
    43
    44             "Where, as in the present case, words are
    45             published to the millions of readers of a
    46             popular newspaper, the chances are that if the
    47             words are reasonably capable of being understood
    48             as bearing more than one meaning, some readers
    49             will have understood them as bearing one of
    50             those meanings and some will have understood 
    51             them as bearing others of those meanings.  But 
    52             none of this matters.  What does matter is what 
    53             the adjudicator at the trial thinks is the one
    54             and only meaning that the readers as reasonable
    55             men should have collectively understood the
    56             words to bear.  That is 'the natural and
    57             ordinary meaning' of the words in an action for
    58             libel."
    59
    60        Then at letter H:

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