UNDUE SECRECY BREEDS FALSE SECURITY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 19, 20 February 1942, Page 4

UNDUE SECRECY BREEDS FALSE SECURITY

TIMELY correspondence in this paper on the secret session gjl the New Zealand House of Representatives, brings us in direct touch with a subject which is likely to grow in public prominence as the war proceeds. It is well known that the rigid censorship imposed in this country, far exceeds that in England, Australia or indeed any part of the Empire. The result is that the public has been brought to knuckle under to a disciplinary regime which has successfully nursed it past the graver issues of the-war, until to-day, when suddenly faced with the realities of genuine danger from the triumphant armies of Japan, there has been a sudden and drastic awakening to the gravity of the situation,, and a popular demand to know more of the details. For far too long we have been spoon-fed. Only selected items of news have been released in order that public reaction shall be carefully safeguarded against nervousness or concern. This sudden official care for the peoples susceptabilities in war time, is scarcely in tune with the unstudied series of shocks which the country had to endure during peace:. It is the more unfortunate in that it has bred a false complacency, which might well be our undoing. Throughout New Zealand at the present time there is a great hunger for the truth. People want* to know the facts! The war zone has included New Zealand herself, yet her people are starved for the and vital news which would keep them posted as to their own position and. the safety of their homes. All they get are the guarded statements of repeated British withdrawals, of our own readiness and of the Russian successes. Are we so. decadent that we cannot be trusted with the true position without pannicking? Must we be eternally molly- coddled away from unpleasantness. This is war, • and surely we, the descendants of a triple race of fighting people can take it. A glance at history assures us that whenever England has been threatened with invasion in the past her best defence lay in taking the people into the confidence of the Government and thereby making for the maximum national effort. The Armada of the Spanish King drew every able-bodied Englishman to the colours, and it was the same during the Napoleonic scare of invasion. All England armed, because even the humblest of her burghers knew and understood the common danger. Is it the same to-day? Secret sessions, guarded broadcasts, hinted statements, gagged commentators and censored press. The direct results are all too plain, either hard-boiled complacency, or bewildered hopelessness born of uncertainty. Only the outspoken truth can have any stabilising effect by offsetting the situation and it would be interesting to know why in these crucial days it cannot be given.