POST OFFICE CENSORSHIP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14978, 27 May 1914, Page 2

POST OFFICE CENSORSHIP.

A BANNED PUBLICATION.

In connexion with the Post Office prohibition of. a certain publication which has been condemnee? by the Catholic Federation, a corres-Jondent wrote to the Wellington "Post" protesting strongly against what he considered Government censorship of liter-

ature on sectarian grounds. The 1 -'Post" communicated with the. Hon. i» 11. Heaton Rhodes, who made the foll lowing reply:— I "I knew nothing whatever of the re? - ligious views held by the paper referred to, nor did I read. any of the ordinary letterpress, as nothing in Uie ! body of the newspaper was marked for ' my perusal. Certain advertisements to ' women were marked, and I read them. , My attitude was called to section 28 of . the Post and Telegraph Act, which, is as follows: — . | «'28—(1) If the Postmaster-General , has at any time reasonable ground to suppose any person in l\ew Zealand or elsewhere to. be engaged (a) in receiving any money or valuable thing as the consideration for any assurance or agreement, expressed or implied, to pay or give any money or valuable thing on any event or contingency relating to any horse-race or other race, fight, game, sport, exercise, or as the consideration, for securing the paying or giving by some other person of any money or valuable thing on any such event or contingency as aforesaid; ■or (b) in promoting or carrying out any scheme connected with any such assurance or agreement, or any lottery, scheme of chance, or unlawful game; or (c) in receiving money under pretence of foretelling future ©vents; or (d) in any fraudulent, obscene, immoral, or unlawful business or undertaking-; or {©* in advertising in direct or indirect terms the treatment of diseases of the sexu.il organs: then the Postmaster-General may, by notice tinder his hand in the "Gazette," order that no postal packet addressed to any such person (either by ins own or any fictitious or assumed name), or to any address without a name, shall be either registered, forwarded, or delivered by the Post OffL-e. "* '(2) Such notice shall specify every sush name, whether real, fictitious, or assmced, and every such address iv respect of which such order is made. " V 3) Until such order is in like manner revoked no such postal packet shall he registered, forwarded, or <Je- • livered, nor shall any money-order be issued in such person's favour or be j paid to hfm." "Under tho powers given. Io mc by Chat section subsection (c) in regard j to notices dealing with treatment of diseases of the sexual organs,* and acting on the advice of my officers that it was customary for Ihe Postmaster(renera! to take action I did so. The question of religion never for one moment entered into my consideration of the matter."