With so much abuse being hurled both inside and outside Federal Parliament these day, I thought I would take a wander through Pandora’s Trove to see how matters stood in the past with regards to civility, political or otherwise.
I uncovered these little snippets in Australian newspapers of yore………
'SLANDER' FEBRUARY 1844
The disgraceful encouragement to slander which prevails in this colony, is much more publicly injurious than it is supposed to be. That it is privately so (of course with certain exceptions; as for example that before us, for Mr. Lowe’s well-known independence 'fortunately places him beyond the reach of its baneful influence) is obvious. What “confidence" in each other can exist in any community where encouragement to the most slanderous reports of each other ' exists’ by the whispering away reputation in the first instance, and when the poison has been sufficiently privately administered [powerful….] then by certain portion of the Press has been mainly instrumental in this deadly evil, we regret to be compelled to acknowledge. When an individual to be assassinated is beyond the reach of personal slander, his circumstances or some other means of injury are assailed. The atrocious abuse of all connected with the Press who have attempted to check this detestable mode of warfare, and the great avowal that any newspaper writer who dared to oppose the opinions of others, or of their friends, was to be subjected to every unmanly abuse, has certainly in a great degree led to this. Argument not being met by reply but by slander, the most base and cowardly, of the writer either known or supposed - a system which if even thought of in England would have produced general execration the writer, not the writing, being the object of assault - has rendered personality the only mode of newspaper warfare. Yet when those with whom so diabolical a course originated are themselves subjected to their own course of practice, how loudly do they exclaim against what, as respects them, is only fair retaliation - only applying their own practice to themselves. It is this method of meeting argument by stabbing the arguer - of silencing an opponent, by destroying him either in his reputation or his circumstances - it is this exhibition of highly sublimed malice which has rendered a residence in Van Diemen's Land hateful in the eyes of the whole civilised world. We know that even in China our colony is viewed as an abode unfit for even commonly civilised man, owing to the ruffian system of personal abuse which a portion, happily certainly only a portion, of its periodical press has exhibited. But it is not to the Press alone that this ferocity of slander is confined. In street conversation, should any individual have unfortunately adopted opinions adverse to those of another, "rascal," " scoundrel," " villain," are gentle terms in comparison to those with which he is assailed. Woe to him who dares to question the claims to virgin purity of those who thus assail an opponent. As the malice engendered is without limit, so also is the method of effecting its detestable purpose. Unhappily the appetite for slander increases as it is fed. It is an ordinary question put to individuals connected with newspapers, "Have you anything ‘spicy ' to-day ?" meaning have you assailed private character - have you committed any moral murder ? Is it not the reproach of daily occurrence, " Your news-paper is too tame for me : I understand there is some delightful " spice " in the _________ of to-morrow : that's the paper for me !" This is a frightful exhibition of the morbid appetite for slander, which renders the colony a pandemonium - an abode unfitting for any but the malicious and the reckless!-Murray's Review.
Slander Gang JULY 1921
The grab, spout and slander gang are waking up to the fact that their vile methods have disgusted fair-minded residents. But like the rattle-snake, and particularly that artful dodger, the hoop-snake, that takes its tail in its mouth and rolls along to reach its intended victim, the gang's venom is so impetuous that they cannot stop themselves. With the lie on their tongues, and the " muck- rake '' in their hands, they roll on to their ignoble doom, which, happily is now not far off. In impotent rage, after innumerable vain tilts with their swelled but brainless heads against the wind- mill of truth and fact, they insult and belie all and sundry, including the three hundred petitioners for an adjustment of the trouble the gang has aggravated. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, etc
DEFAMATION AND LIBEL SEPTEMBER 1927
ALLEGATIONS BY MR. WILLIS
MR. MINAHAN'S STATEMENTS RESENTED
Charges against an unnamed New South Wales Cabinet Minister of having solicited a bribe, have been resented by Mr. A. C. Willis, and writs for defamation and libel, claiming £20,000 damages have been issued.
Sydney, September 19. Mr. A. C. Willis, vice-president of the Executive Council, instructed his solicitors to-day to issue a writ for £10,000 for alleged defamation, against Mr. P. J.Minahan, M.L.A. and another for £10,000 again Smith's Newspapers Ltd. for alleged libel. The writs were issued this afternoon. Mr. Willis stated that he observed that Mr. Minahan had made a charge against a member of past and present Cabinets of soliciting a bribe from the Wine and Spirit Growers’ Defence Association. As he was the only member of both Cabinets, apart from the Premier, and as the paper which published Mr. Minahan's charges referred to the unnamed Minister as a colleague of Mr. Lang, the charge, he alleged, was obviously aimed at him. There was only one answer to such an accusation, and he had therefore instructed writs to be issued.
DOCTOR VERSUS PRIEST MARCH 1931
LIBEL AND SLANDER ACTIONS
JURY'S VERDICT
Sydney. Feb. 25. The hearing was concluded to-day: by Mr. Justice Davidson and a jury of four. of the action brought. By Hereward Leighton Kesteven, of Bulladeah, against. John Patrick Kelly, priest of the Roman Catholic Church, to recover £200 as damages for libel and slander. The jury, after an absence of 5 minutes, returned a verdict for the defendant on the counts alleging libel in the letters written by the priest to his parishioner, Mrs. Hickey, and to the plaintiff solicitors. On the count alleging slander by the priest in a statement from the altar, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for £100…….
SLANDER AND LIBEL MAY 1931
FASCIST LEADER IMPRISONED
BERLIN April 30. The Nazi (Fascist) Leader, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, failed to appear for trial to-day on seven charges of having slandered the police. He was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and fined £80, with a further fine of £50 for having libelled the German Administration.
"A SCURRILOUS SLANDER" NOVEMBER 1936
American Libel of Anzacs
MELBOURNE, Friday; Mention at the federal congress of R.S.S.I.L.A. at Adelaide yesterday of an article in the American magazine "Liberty," asserting that the Anzacs were sent to Gallipoli as punishment for conduct in Cairo, has excited 'wide spread resentment. Extracts were read to the congress by the federal president (Sir Gilbert Dyett) from a copy of the magazine, forwarded to Adelaide by Mr. N. A. Kelly, night editor of the Vancouver "Daily Province," himself an Anzac veteran, who has already protested from Vancouver to the editors of the magazine. The article is headed "Legion of Lost Souls," and is attributed to Captain W. J. Black ledge, who has written a number of articles in the magazine dealing, among other war incidents, with the siege of Kut el Amara and post-war Indiao. frontier campaigns. Black ledge claims to have obtained his facts regarding Gallipoli from "the deeply-engraved memories of Digger Craven, an Australian trooper." Quoting his informant, the writer says: "The men of the Anzac Corps were convinced that their presence on Gallipoli was the result of their behaviour in Egypt. I never met an Australian or New Zealander who did not hold that conviction." The article also gives a highly-coloured version of the Gallipoli landing. In revealing the contents of the article to congress Sir Gilbert Dyett re marked that everyone in Australia would realise that the statements were more than ridiculous, but people in other countries might be misled.
Cosen for Efficiency
CANBERRA, Friday. "A scurrilous slander on the men of the A.I.F.," was Sir George Pearce's comment to-day, when emphatically repudiating the report published in the American journal "Liberty" that the Australian troops were sent to Gallipoli as punishment for lack of discipline in Egypt. Sir George, who was Australia's Minister for Defence during the Great War, said high efficiency was revealed by the Australian forces during their training in Egypt, and accordingly they were selected for [inclusion] in the Gallipoli campaign.
"Too Foolish"
SYDNEY, Friday. Dr. C. E. Bean, the war historian, said to-day that Captain Blackledge's story was too foolish to merit comment. He considered that not one in each million American inhabitants would be really misled by such stories.
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