Note 19 — Chapter IV

“Our legal system is apt to give wholly disproportionate importance to a large class of libel and slander actions intrinsically of small account. We provide first-rate machinery for the determination of second-rate or even trumpery questions; disputes not much above the level of those which a County Court judge settles once for all in a rough and ready manner in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. It is true that there are libels of a cruel and malignant character, more mischievous than most crimes; calumnies industriously circulated as to the private lives of innocent men and women; fictions or distortions of facts for which no punishment is excessive. For such libels the criminal law is the proper remedy. But for a large mass of libels and slanders which engage the time of High Court judges and special juries the legal machinery provided, criminal or civil, is altogether out of proportion to their importance.”—The Times.