LITERARY CENSORSHIP.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 846, 18 June 1910, Page 9

LITERARY CENSORSHIP.

: Speaking, at' a dinner given by tlie 'Authors' Club, Lord Halsbury', the exLord Chancellor, spoke on the censor- ■ - fillip of fiction. 'As to. law and litera- ., he did not quite know how they -■ joined those which had been described . by . the chairman as sometimes hostile forces., A judge sometimes had, as part of his duty, l to condemn some form of literature, "and, indeed, some of the things I have seen," lie continued, "the subject of examination in Courts, ■ . of law it would be a mistake to speak of as literaturo at all. It is one of the advantages or disadvantages—that : it. must be for this learned society to . determine—to know .when a thing does advance to : tho position, of being an , example of literary merit. It is'a very . -difficult thing to say. Sometimes one reads things 'tfiat—well, I do not liko to occupy tho position-.of judge, because that is not my present function; but if 1 : it was 1 should say that some of the •v matter which I read, with respect to the, elegance of the language and the ■ height of the morals and kindliness exhibited towards our fellow-man, is not ...; what I should like to advocate for ,'iteraturo simplicity. I. cannot help thinking that when literature—l use the phrase 'without prejudice,' as we . . lawyers say—of that sort comes in the :discussion occasionally it is rather hard > ; upon literature. When .-high-sounding phrases about the freedom of the press ,and about the necessity of allowing people to express their thoughts and phrases of the same character are put upon'literature, 'and it is said that if these things, are literaturo, and you have no right to suppress them by law, I am afraid 1 do not concur. I think that they ought to be suppressed by Jaw, and I do-not think that any real admirer of literature in its> propet and. true sense would disagree with me; ' but it is very easy to get up a cry and rery easy to speak of the most loathsome appeals to the lowest of our passions as_ if it was freedom to allow these to be distributed amongst us." When law and literature come together,. true, literature—that which recognises not only tho rights of mam but the. virtues and the vices of man, and proclaims war against low and - base appeals to the meanest passions of mankind, and only recognises the fact that we aTe all dependent upon one another, and. that every inan who 'sins against humanity sins against his brother also —we must remember at all events this: that when'we talk .of freedom, freedom is only ensured if you- insist upon men having their rights and that no right can consist in wrong. (Cheers.) Every man who makes himself a patron and a friend of oppression, in whatever form oppression comes, nntl who takes that which is not his, and strives to make his fellow man aid and assist him in taking it, is guilty of an offence against the Eighth Commandment. And ho who strives to make man good not only by, self-sacrificc, but by self-indulgence; who strives to mako men rich not by their own exertions, not by doing that which tliey m have a right to do, but by , taking from others that which they possess —such a man takes a course that is. not policy,.that is not justice, and is . not what will make men great or make , ' Governments stable and firm. He was deeply grateful to them all for the kindness with which they had received him. He could only say that he had 1>! ■en among many men, lie bad addressed many-audiences, but, to have .such- an audience as that in which men whose minds wore cultivated, who had esfcablisbcd their riiiht to appeal to

their fellow-men and to teach .them, as thc.v did teach thorn, through literature .—and there was m> teacher so eloquentas literature, so efficient as literature, no teacher which made on the minds of tho voung while they were still susceptible such deep and lasting impressions of that which was fair and right and good, and so well set before them exemplars for themselves—to address such an audience was a privilege ho greatly appreciated. Tl> "re was no. subject which could eduvflto mankind as a wholesome and good literature.