The 1954 Act in New Zealand reproduced the provisions as to libel in the Judicature Act 1908 (s. 101), the Legislature Act 1908 (ss. 254, 255, and 256), the Law of Libel Amendment Acts of 1910 and 1933, and s. 26 of the Statutes Amendment Act 1948. The only material amendment that has been made to the 1954 Act is in the Defamation Amendment Act 1958 which merely provides that the Crown is bound by the law as it stands. The law of libel in New Zealand, as in the United Kingdom, is in many respects still lacking in precision. Much dissatisfaction had been felt in New Zealand up to 1954 at what were generally regarded as some harsh and uncompromising provisions unduly favourable to plaintiffs, but with recent amendments it is today difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Law Draftsman has contrived to swing the balance in favour of defendants in some material respects. In fact, the point has been reached where a most jealous supervision by the Courts is more necessary than ever. Without rigid surveillance, the extension of the occasions of privilege to defame could significantly weaken the protection the State owes to the individual's common-law inheritance of a good name.

The issue in the language of current legislation is relatively simple. A defamatory statement, libellous or slanderous, is one which, if published, is calculated to expose the victim to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or is likely to disparage or injure him in his trade, business, profession, or relations with his fellow men. Actionable libel (written, printed, or published) and actionable slander (oral, or in some other impermanent form, such as sound, sign, or gesture) have been assimilated by the 1954 Act, so that it is no longer necessary to prove actual damage in an action for defamation. Previously to 1954, special damage did not have to be proved in actions for libel, but it was essential to a slander cause, except in certain exceptional circumstances. The result, therefore, of the new statute is that the somewhat disconcerting distinction between libel and slander has been removed.

The 1954 Act, which is a moderately compendious measure, defines the procedure of publication, the distinction between civil and criminal defamation, and sets out the categories of possible defences under such headings as justification, absolute privilege, qualified privilege, privileged reports, and fair comment. The law is reasonably unequivocal on these points, but it should be emphasised that proved malice destroys some very sound defences. For instance, malice, which must be proved by the plaintiff, effectively disposes of qualified privilege, although it is powerless to destroy absolute privilege. Similarly, malice rules out the defence of fair comment, which is concerned with expressions of opinion as opposed to assertions of fact. Criminal libel is distinguished from the civil variety in that before any action can be brought by way of indictment (or even in a summary fashion) it must be approved by a Judge of the Supreme Court or by a Magistrate. Proof of the truth of a statement is not a defence unless publication can be shown to have been for the public benefit or interest.

In New Zealand, as in all countries where the jurisdiction of the common law of England runs, every man is entitled to his good name and the esteem, great or small, of his fellows. In short, he has a right to demand that his reputation shall not be disparaged or smirched by defamatory statements, written or oral, made about him to a third person or persons, without lawful justification. Hence the law of libel and slander. In New Zealand this law is represented by the Defamation Act 1954, relevant sections of the Crimes Act 1961, and the Post Office Act 1959. Generally speaking, the New Zealand Act runs parallel with the United Kingdom statute – the Defamation Act 1952. This represents the revision of the English law in the terms of the recommendations of the Committee on the Law of Defamation which, under the chairmanship of Lord Porter, one of the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, presented its report to the British Government in 1948. In general, therefore, New Zealand law on this subject is up to date with current thought and policy within the Commonwealth.

(1850–1924).

Journalist, newspaper proprietor, and public benefactor.

A new biography of Leys, Thomson Wilson appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Thomson Wilson Leys, the son of William Leys, a Scottish excise officer, and Hannah, née Wilson, was born at Nottingham in 1850, and educated at the People's College, Nottingham. At an extraordinarily tender age, he developed a social conscience which was to colour his whole life and find expression in his latter years in a constant flow of benefactions to the community of Auckland, where he finally settled, and to the Dominion as a whole. At the age of 12, as an entirely voluntary effort, he taught in the Ragged Schools of his day, and as he progressed through his teens he developed a lively interest in social work generally. His work for his less fortunate fellows in England, however, was cut short almost as soon as it started, as his father, about 1862, became enthusiastically involved in the idea of a Nonconformist colony at Albertland in New Zealand. When, however, the family landed in Auckland in 1863, the father had had enough of travel and decided to settle. His son entered upon a three-year apprenticeship with the Southern Cross, and finally became subeditor of that journal. After a period of freelance writing, following a breakdown in health, young Leys joined the Auckland Star as a subeditor in 1872. He was appointed editor in 1876, and held that position for 45 years. As a journalist he was a prodigious worker, but not even printer's ink could keep him away from the social service interests he had espoused at home. He took part in various community movements and at the same time was acting as a kind of public relations officer for Auckland. He compiled the Auckland Provincial Almanac and Handbook, and the Auckland section of Vogel's Handbook of New Zealand, as well as editing a history of New Zealand by Sherrin and Wallace which was published by Brett. In 1889 he was admitted to partnership in the Auckland Star, the New Zealand Graphic, and the New Zealand Farmer, of which publications he became managing director in 1894, a position he held until his death.

Leys became a notable figure in the world of journalism on a national scale. He was chairman of the meeting in Wellington which formed the press agency that later grew into the United Press Association of the present day, and in 1920 he led the New Zealand delegation to the Empire Press Conference in Canada. It was at this time that he was granted the honorary degree of LL.D. of McGill University.

As became a man of early acquired humanistic instincts, Leys was a Liberal in politics, and over a considerable period of years used his not inconsiderable influence in support, first, of Sir George Grey, and, later, of Ballance and Seddon. When he was offered a seat in the Legislative Council, he declined on the grounds that journalists, working or otherwise, should not dabble in such things. In his latter years Leys found more and more time to devote to the public service on the social level which had engaged his attention all his life. The Leys Institute in Ponsonby, founded by his brother, was one of his special interests, and he provided the funds for half the cost of the building and furnishings. Also as president of the Ponsonby Boys' Brigade he was a notable benefactor to that organisation. Free libraries comprised another of his hobbies and he was president of the first library conference in Dunedin. The Boy Scouts' Association enjoyed his ardent and practical support, as did the Mechanics' Institute of Auckland. He was a member of the McKelvie Trust Board, the Auckland Art Gallery Society, to which he presented valuable works of art, the Auckland War Memorial Museum Board, and the Workers' Educational Association; and he was for many years chairman of the Council of Auckland University College. Trust funds in varying amounts still contribute to the work of most of the organisations which Leys adopted in his lifetime. He died in Auckland on 27 September 1924.

Leys married twice; first, in 1875 in Auckland, to Charlotte Oxley, by whom he had one son and two daughters, and, secondly, in 1913, also in Auckland, to Avice Mason Williams.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

New Zealand Herald, 29 Sep 1924 (Obit).

Lewis Pass (2,836 ft) lies on the main divide at the southern end of the Spenser Mountains, and is named after Henry Lewis (surveyor) who discovered it in the early 1860s. It is drained by the Maruia River to the east and the Lewis River to the west. The country is less steep and more open than that at either Haast or Arthur's Pass, and as a result this route is being developed as the main one for road traffic to the West Coast. Because of the high rainfall (over 140 in.), both sides of the pass support dense forest. During the last ice age the valleys on either side of the pass were occupied by glaciers whose effect was to steepen the sides of the valleys and to leave deposits of moraine and outwash gravel that can be seen in some road cuttings. To the north-east of the top of the pass, just out of sight of the road, is a small lake which has formed in a deposit of moraine left by a glacier that formerly flowed down the valley in which Cannibal Gorge has subsequently been cut. About 5 miles to the west of the pass, hot springs (Maruia Springs) occur along a fault zone; water from these springs (temp. 140°F) is piped across the Maruia River to swimming baths at the Maruia Springs Hotel.

by Henry Stephen Gair, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Christchurch.

(1831–66).

Maungatapu murderer.

Philip Levy was born in London of Jewish parents and came to Victoria as a free immigrant, setting up in business as a general trader. Later he shifted his operations to the Otago goldfields. There his activities brought him under police attention as he was suspected of being both fence and lookout man for the Burgess and other gangs. He had no known police record. Summoned to Hokitika in early 1866 by Burgess, he thereafter became an active member of the gang. In the trial he was unsuccessfully defended by Albert Pitt, and went to the gallows protesting his innocence. He was executed in Nelson Gaol on 5 October 1866, along with Burgess and Kelly; Sullivan, the fourth member of the gang, was reprieved.

Trials, Notable; Maungatapu Murders.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

(1892– ).

Grassland authority.

A new biography of Levy, Enoch Bruce appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Enoch Bruce Levy was born at Auckland on 19 February 1892 and educated at Victoria Univ. College, Wellington. In 1911 he joined the Department of Agriculture, specialising in botany. He became Agrostologist until 1937 when he was appointed Director of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. His work over these years has so influenced the practice of pasture management in New Zealand that the carrying capacity of the land has greatly increased. From 1932 to 1951 he was director of greenkeeping research, and from 1951–58 he was chairman of the New Zealand Institute of Turf Culture. He is a life member of the Grasslands Association and of the New Zealand Animal Production Society. In 1951 the Royal Society of Arts (London) awarded him the R. B. Bennett Empire Prize. His publications, apart from many professional papers, include Grasslands of New Zealand (1951); Construction, Renovation and Care of the Bowling Green (1949); and Construction, Renovation and Care of the Golf Course (1950). He received the O.B.E. in 1950 and was knighted in 1953.

(1819–1903); William Hort (1845–93).

Merchants and public benefactors.

A new biography of Levin, Nathaniel William appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

A new biography of Levin, William Hort appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

N. W. Levin was born in London on 24 May 1819, son of a Jewish merchant. He arrived at Port Nicholson on 30 May 1841 and commenced trading in Wellington on 2 August in the same year under the style of “Levin & Co.”. He took an active part in the early social life of the colony, was prominent in the Jewish community, and was a foundation member of many notable public institutions. He devoted unremitting attention to his business interests, and in June 1862 entered a partnership with C. J. Pharazyn and W. W. Johnston, which terminated in 1868. On 25 June 1869 Levin was appointed to the Legislative Council, resigning on 11 January 1871, when he decided to settle in London. There he became a partner of Redfern, Alexander, and Co. He retired from business in January 1882, and remained in London until his death on 30 April 1903.

Levin married, on 31 January 1844, Jessie, daughter of Abraham Hort and sister of Margaret, wife of Sir F. D. Bell. To them was born, on 7 August 1845, William Hort, who, in 1868, succeeded his father in the firm of Levin and Co.

William Hort Levin (1845–93) (“Willie”) took over a thriving business and was thus able to devote much of his time to public services. He married, on 20 March 1876, Amy, daughter of James Edward FitzGerald. He was elected to the House of Representatives for Wellington City on 5 September 1879, and for Thorndon, 9 December 1881, but resigned owing to ill health on 23 March 1884. During his term he piloted through the House the Bill establishing the Wellington Harbour Board, of which he subsequently became first chairman (1880–83). He served on the Wellington City Council, and was president or an office bearer of many local public, sporting, and cultural bodies. His public benefactions included £1,000 to form the nucleus of a public library, recreation facilities for the Workingmen's Club, and a gift to help establish the Home for the Aged and Needy (1888).

When he died at his home in Tinakori Road on 15 September 1893, most business firms in the city closed to mourn him, Parliament passed condolences, and the Governor, Lord Glasgow, cancelled his engagements as a mark of respect.

The Levins, father and son, were greatly respected not merely on account of their large charitable endowments, but more especially because they were always ready to give generously to needy causes.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

Levin & Co., 1841–1941, Gore, R. (1956); Evening Post, 15 Sep 1893 (Obit). The History of the Jews in New Zealand, Goldman, L. M. (1958).

Levin is situated on the southern part of the Manawatu Plain, known as the Horowhenua district. The sea coast is 6 miles west, and about 5 miles east of the town the land rises to the Tararua Range. Lake Horowhenua is 1 mile west of the town. The North Island Main Trunk railway passes through Levin, which is also a junction for the main highways from Wellington, Wanganui, and Palmerston North. By road Levin is 31 miles south-west of Palmerston North (28 miles by rail), 10 miles south-west of Shannon by road or rail, and 14 miles north-east of Otaki (13 miles by rail from Otaki Railway).

The main rural activities of the district are dairying; sheep raising, including fat-lamb production; market gardening; and berry-fruit growing. Butter and cheese are manufactured at Ohau (3 miles south). The district supplies whole milk for the Wellington City market. Forestry is carried on at Waitarere Beach (9½ miles north-west). A hospital farm for mentally handicapped children is situated 3 miles south of Levin. Levin is a trade and servicing centre with a number of secondary industries. These include the manufacture of butter, various types of clothing, brushware, cardboard containers, leather machine belting, flax-fibre matting, joinery and furniture, motor bodies and caravans, electric fences, bricks and pipes, and concrete products. Boiling-down works process various by-products of abattoirs which serve the wholesale butchering trade. There is an iron foundry in the town, and general and electrical engineering and sheet-metal working are carried on. In recent years Levin has become a popular centre for motor racing

The original inhabitants of the district are believed to have belonged to the Waitaha Tribe. They were succeeded in turn by the Ngati Mamoe and the Muaupoko. In 1820 the district was raided by a war party under Te Rauparaha and Tamati Waka Nene. Te Rauparaha returned later in the 1820s with his Ngati Toa and allied tribes, and most of the coastal areas south of the Whangaehu River were invaded and occupied. The southern part of Horowhenua, containing the future town site, became part of the Ngati Raukawa territory.

In 1832 Hector McDonald, a whaler, landed at Kapiti and negotiated with Te Rauparaha for the establishment of a whaling station. In 1840 McDonald moved to Otaki to trade with the new settlement at Port Nicholson. In the early 1850s he extended his activities to sheep farming and leased from the Ngati Raukawa and Muaupoko a coastal strip, 10–12 miles long and about 2 miles wide, from the Ohau River to the Poroutawhao Swamp. McDonald thus became the pioneer European settler in the district now centred on Levin. In 1873, with the help of Major Kemp, the Muaupoko Tribe assumed ownership of the Horowhenua Block. Kemp was the sole trustee of this land until 1886 when it was partitioned among individual owners. At the same time the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Co. acquired the ownership of land for its line through the block. Railway communication with Wellington and Palmerston North was established in the same year. Kemp stipulated that 4,000 acres be purchased by the Government for a township to be called Taitoko. It was surveyed in December 1888, but was named Levin after William Hort Levin, a director of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Co. The town, suburban, and rural sections were thrown open for sale or selection on 19 March 1889. Most of the early settlers had to clear bush, and for a time sawmilling was an important local industry. With the rapid clearance of the native forest, dairying and other farming activities were established. Levin was constituted a borough on 1 April 1906.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 4,736; 1956 census, 6,458; 1961 census, 7,940. B.N.D. and E.S.D.

(1785–1852).

Pioneer Wesleyan missionary in Australia and New Zealand.

A new biography of Leigh, Samuel appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Samuel Leigh was born on 1 September 1785 at Milton, near Hanley, in Staffordshire. He came under a strong religious influence in his home and joined the Congregational Church. He decided to serve in the ministry and studied under Dr Bogue at Gosport. But in 1812, because he found Congregational theology too austere for his liking, he offered his services to the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Portsmouth. He was accepted as a probationer and spent two years on the Shaftesbury circuit before being ordained in 1814.

During the 1812–14 War, Canadian Methodists wrote to London requesting that missionaries be sent to Lower Canada. Leigh was appointed to Montreal in response to this request; but, as this had been done without reference to the American Bishops, it was soon found that Montreal could not receive the appointee. Leigh was therefore transferred to New South Wales. He sailed for Sydney on 28 February 1815 and landed there on 30 August, and thus became the first Wesleyan missionary to reach Australia. Although Governor Macquarie had made considerable progress towards developing the material conditions of the colony, Leigh found that its moral tone was at an extremely low ebb. With Macquarie's blessing he at once set out to revitalise the tiny Methodist society in Sydney and, in short order, he formed Bible classes at Sydney, Parramatta, Windsor, and Castlereagh, opened Sunday schools at each, and secured 15 preaching places in the district. Leigh preached regularly at each of these once every three weeks. On 7 October 1817, at Castlereagh, he opened the first Wesleyan Chapel in Australia. This was followed two years later by chapels at Princess Street in Sydney, and Macquarie Street in Parramatta, and by a brick chapel at Windsor – the site for this latter being donated by Marsden.

Unfortunately Leigh's health broke down and, in 1819, soon after Walter Lawry's arrival in Sydney, Marsden invited him to visit New Zealand. He landed at the Bay of Islands on 5 May 1819 and remained nine months. During this time, at Marsden's request, he mediated successfully in a dispute which had arisen among the members of the Church Missionary Society establishment. He also recommended that their mission work should be reorganised as a series of circuits – a good Wesleyan principle – and his subsequent report to Marsden led to the appointment of the first Anglican clergyman, the Rev. J. G. Butler, to New Zealand.

In 1820 Leigh's health again failed and he returned to England. There he urged upon the Wesleyan Missionary Committee the need to strengthen their work in the South Pacific. He especially pressed the claims of New South Wales and Tasmania for their consideration and argued for a separate mission to the aboriginals. He also urged that missions be opened in New Zealand and Tonga. As a result of his plea the conference of that year decided to dispatch Erskine and Mansfield, one of whom was to devote himself entirely to the aboriginal population, to New South Wales, Carbosso to Tasmania, Leigh to New Zealand, and Lawry to Tonga. In addition, two missionaries, still to be appointed, were to serve in the South Seas.

Leigh returned to Sydney via Tasmania, where he stayed to open a new mission station, arriving in September 1821 and sailing again for New Zealand on 1 January 1822. For the next 16 months, while he learned Maori, Leigh remained at Te Puna with Hall of the C.M.S. Towards the end of May 1823 he was joined by William White, who had been appointed by the 1821 conference. Leigh and White travelled to Whangarei, but agreed that it was not a suitable place to begin their work. They next visited several tribes living near Kaeo, in the Whangaroa district, and decided to establish a mission among the tribes who had perpetrated the Boyd massacre some years earlier. Because they suspected it to be a ruse to kidnap their chiefs for trial at Sydney, the Maoris did not welcome the new arrivals at first. Leigh, however, quieted their fears and purchased about 30 acres for a mission site. He named the station Wesley-Dale; and, for the first winter weeks, the missionaries camped in tents until more permanent buildings could be erected. After the first excitement occasioned by their arrival had died down, the Maoris showed alarming truculence and ransacked the mission several times. Leigh suffered a further breakdown in health. Late in August 1823, when Marsden brought Turner and Hobbs to Wesley-Dale, he was alarmed by Leigh's condition and persuaded him to seek medical treatment in Sydney. On 17 September 1823 Leigh sailed from New Zealand in the Brampton, but was shipwrecked near Moturoa Island. This delayed his departure until 14 November 1823, when he left New Zealand for the last time.

From 1823 to 1831 Leigh worked on the Parramatta circuit. After his wife's death in the latter year he returned to England. He acted as a supernumerary at Liverpool until 1833, when he rejoined the itinerancy at Gravesend. During the next few years he served on several circuits and, in 1845, retired from the ministry. Leigh settled at Reading, but still interested himself in church affairs. He travelled widely in England and delivered public addresses on all aspects of missionary work. Leigh continued these labours until 24 November 1851, when he suffered a severe stroke. He died at Reading on 2 May 1852.

Leigh was twice married; first, in 1820, to Catherine Clewes (died Parramatta, 15 May 1831), a Staffordshire girl whom he had known from his boyhood; and, secondly, in August 1842, to Elizabeth, widow of the Rev. William Kaye, a Wesleyan minister. Although he had no family of his own, Leigh adopted and brought up two of his wife's nieces.

Although Leigh possessed no great intellectual powers, he was ideally suited to missionary work. Himself a convert to Methodism, he was imbued with all the zeal and earnestness of an apostle and gave himself so energetically to his calling that he endangered his health repeatedly. He was the first Wesleyan missionary to arrive in Australasia and he supervised the establishment of his church's first missions in New South Wales, Tasmania, and New Zealand and, to the end of his life, he corresponded regularly with the Wesleyan missionaries in the South Pacific. Leigh's exploits in the Wesleyan missions are said to have been rivalled only by those of Dr Coke, the pioneer missionary of Ceylon. The Wesleyan Theological College at Enfield, New South Wales, and the Methodist Chapel in Macquarie Street, Parramatta, both perpetuate his name.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• The Life of Samuel Leigh, Strachan, A. (1855)
• Papers Relative to the Wesleyan Missions and the State of Heathen Countries, No. XXVII, Mar 1827
• A New History of Methodism, Townsend, W. J., Workman, H. B., Eayrs, G. (1909)
• Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, Elder, J. R. (ed.) (1932).

Legitimation by the subsequent marriage of their parents of children born out of wedlock, although recognised by canon law, was rejected by the common law of England, which New Zealand inherited in 1840. This harsh rule survived in England until 1926, but it was ameliorated in some cases in New Zealand in 1860, when the children of Europeans and Maoris, who had subsequently married, were made legitimate. The introduction of adoption in 1881 opened an indirect means of legitimation. In 1894 the Legitimation Act, whose promoters seem to have been inspired by the law of Scotland, made general provision for legitimation by subsequent marriage.

Under the 1894 Act a child was legitimated only if its parents might lawfully have married when it was born; that is, if neither parent was then married to anyone else. Moreover, legitimation depended on registration. The first of these restrictions was removed in 1921, the second in 1939. The present law is that any child whose parents have subsequently married, wherever the child was born or the marriage occurred, is automatically legitimate for all the purposes of New Zealand law as if born in lawful wedlock.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

• New Zealand, the Development of its Laws and Constitution (ed.) Robson, J. L. (1954).