Lord Thankerton:-

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Malta, dated 27th November 1931, which reversed the judgment of His Majesty's Civil Court of Malta (First Hall), dated 29th January 1931, and dismissed the appellant's claims brought forward in the writ-of-summons. In the writ-of-summons, which is dated 14th January 1929, the appellant claimed damages and reparation for moral injury in terms of Ordnance 14 of 1689 against the respondent as editor of a local newspaper, "The Mid-day News," in respect of an article entitled "An Armistice Day in Rome," which was published in that newspaper on 19th November 1928,

"in which, in the second column, determinate facts, dishonouring and untruthful, are ascribed to plaintiff, damaging said plaintiff's honour and reputation in such a manner as to expose him to public contempt and derision, imputing to him that he had stupidly and unwarrantably attacked the dogmas of the Catholic Faith, in which article the following words occur: 'But the advent of Strickland has created such an atmosphere through his stupid and unwarranted attacks on ... the tenets of faith' ".

In his statement of defence the respondent repudiated the cl