GROUNDLESS PROSECUTION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 100, 4 September 1942, Page 4

GROUNDLESS PROSECUTION

ON Tuesday last the Whakatane Magistrate's Court with clue solemnity and acting under the Censorship regulations convicted an elderly lady, well known and highly respected, with two sons overseas with the fighting forces, and whose loyalty is beyond question for mentioning in a letter to her sons, that American troops were in New Zealand. On the same day from America, New Zealand's Prime Minister broadcast exactly the same information to the world at large. The rank unfairness of the prosecution under the circumstances will rankle in the minds of all who know the facts and speaks all too eloquently of the farce which has been made of our hawke-like censorship by the Dominion's highest representative. The situation also would seem to bear out to the full the sharp criticism of visiting American and foreign correspondents regarding the rigid degree to which our censorship is permitted to ( operate, and supplies food for thought when one reflects upon the statement made by Mr Nash, also in America, that this country had 240,000 men under arms. We wonder what would have happened to an innocent letter writer had the same statement been made by less public means. Let us have control, by all means as a safeguard against stupidity but .by all that is sane let us be reasonable about it