Team faces serious opposition

The Peter Dawson Cup match between Canterbury and Otago, at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday, should provide the public with an interesting exhibition. The Canterbury team this year is, taken all round, one of the strongest that has visited Dunedin for many years, and will provide the Otago representatives with the most serious opposition so far encountered in Peter Dawson Cup challenges. The team will arrive on Friday, September 11, returning on Monday, September 14. Mr R. English, president of the Canterbury Football Association, will accompany the team as manager.

Notoriety versus anonymity

There is some difference both of public opinion and judicial practice in regard to the suppression of names in the courts in special circumstances. Before Parliament took action in the matter judges and magistrates would occasionally suggest that a name should not be published in the press. There was no compulsion, and with rare exceptions the press was in full agreement with the recommendations of the bench. Perhaps without disadvantage the position might have been allowed to remain as it was. The abuses were very few. The Legislature, however, stepped in with an enactment authorising the courts to enforce the suppression of names. As a result the number of applications for suppression has been greatly increased, and the divergence of practice to which we have alluded has become very noticeable. Mr Justice Alpers, whose judicial obiter dicta seldom lack a spice of pungency, dealt with the subject in connection with an application at the Supreme Court at Auckland this week. "I am very jealous," he said, "of the absolute right of the press to report with discretion." His Honor went on to express his confidence in the way in which the press used its discretionary powers without the pressure of compulsion. In this particular case he ultimately recommended that names should not be published, while declining to make an order. Certainly there is a prevalent feeling that a practice originally based upon a sound and humane principle has not been conspicuously successful in operation. For one thing there has been a want of consistency in administering the powers of the bench. The right of publicity cannot be too jealously guarded, though there are frequent instances in which a merciful shielding may do no harm to the interests of the community. This consideration is specially applicable to the cases of women and youths who have swerved, not hopelessly, from the path of rectitude. — editorial 

Let’s find another way

It is to be hoped the Bank of New Zealand will promptly suppress the issue of its new 10-shilling note. The value indication, shown thus: £ will doubtless cause many mistakes and consequent loss. 

In addition, the note is by no means artistic, being a horrible yellow offence to the eye. 

— ODT, 10.9.1925

Compiled by Peter Dowden