THE CENSORSHIP

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2795, 13 June 1916, Page 9

THE CENSORSHIP

RULES ABOUT NEWSPAPERS POSTED. A question regarding tho censorship of newspapers posted in New Zealand by private individuals to residents of neutral countries, particularly America, was, asked in the House on Friday by Mr. J.' A. Young. Ho understood that newspapers posted from newspaper offices in tho office's original wrappers were allowed to go through the post to neutral countries. If, however, private . individuals posted newspapers in other wrappers in their own homes, they were not allowed to go out of the country. He asked whether the Government could not make some arrangement whereby persons posting newspapers to friends in neutral countries could in i the first place take them to a postmaster and satisfy, him that there was nothing in them that was likely to be used to the detriment of our military position iii any way. ■ He had heard that many of the newspapers that had been posted had been destroyed without the knowledge of the people who had posted them. - The Postmaster-General, Sir Joseph Ward, stated that the censorship of newspapers passing through the post was carried out under the direction of the military authorities in the Old Country, and that the system could not be altered in the Dominion. Single newspapers in wrappers did not in any case go to neutral oountries unless forwarded by publishers, or their agents. It was not correct to state that newspapei's bearing tho wrapper of their own office were allowed to go. The rule concerning them' was the same as for papers bearing any other sort of wrapper. The object of the restriction was to prevent papers being Eent out of the country by persons' to persons in foreign countries, and used in any way to the advantage of the enemy. It was not a. question of the New Zealand Postal Department or of the New Zealand censorship. The regulations' ho doubt imposed an inconvenience upon people, but it was better to suffer this inconvenience than to have information, which might be in the newspapers made use of by the enemy.

Mr. C. 11. Poole: Have the people who post the newspapers hot been notified-of their destruction ? 1 .

Sir Joseph Ward said that all these newspapers could not be returned to. the senders, aiid'as they must be disposed of, they were destroyed. -What was.being done in regard to postage had been notified from end to end of the Dominion.