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:
