MISUSE ALLEGED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 15 October 1942, Page 4

MISUSE ALLEGED

CENSORSHIP IN NEW ZEALAND STATEMENT lIY MB 1101 I \NI) SPIRITED REPLY BY PRIME MINISTER Wellington. Tin De "Tin attacking the system that plares in the hands of any one man the right to go over the heads of responsible -Ministers and veto then right to tell the public anything the* think the public ought to be told said the Leader of the Opposition. Mi S G Holland in the House of Re prcsf.ntatives last night when he v fi.rred to the censorship in New Zealand. A vigorous reply was made by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser. | Air Holland said that when be an nounced his resignation from th** Was Administration he had referred to what ! lie then called "another matter" and 1 he went on to explain what that was As Minister for War Expenditure he had thought there was need for scrutiny of proposed item of war expenditure and he had suggested a committee lor that purpose. He had proposed another committee to look into the matter of efficiency and economy ol war warlc, and the Army and Treasury hud approved of that. lie had prepared t«u publication in the pres- a statement explaining this, and a copy went to the censor, who, to Mr Holland's amazement, prohibited publication of th*statement. In doing that the censor overruled the Acting-Prime Minister Mr Holland said that the people ol j New Zealand had the right to know how money was being spent on the war. No I suggestion had been made that the j statement contained information oi ; value to the enemy. "PEOPLE KEPT IN IGNORANCE” j "I want to raise my voice in protest against the misuse of censorship lo protect the Government.’ said Mr Holland. Despite the co-operation of the newii papers there was an absence ot any el - i leclive news service in New Zealand and he commended the recent statement | on censorship made by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. The people j were kept in ignorance of many things which they were entitled to know ot j many recent happenings in the country ; and that resulted in the spread of ! garbled versions and rumours. ; Air Holland said that he hud urged j the setting up of a Ministry of InforI mation and had been told that the proj posal was under way but nothing had ; been done. “The people must be tolu the truth," he said. "It's no good j treating them like a lot of children.” ALL STATEMENTS SUBMITTED TO CENSOR i Replying, the Prime Minister said i that Mr Holland had stated that cer- | lain action taken by the censor was to i defend the Government. The War | Cabinet, from the beginning however, had been responsible for the administration of the war finances and therc- ; lore there was no question of defending the ordinary Government. In regard ;to statements on war policy the War j Cabinet had laid it down that they must I be submitted. The censor, in a case ; like that, would not interfere, and had never interfered. The censor had always given the Prime Minister the opportunity of looking at Minister's j statements whatever they were. Mr Fraser said that he himself never | made a statement on any aspect of the war issue without submitting it to the : censor. Other members of the War i Cabinet, not all of them on the Govf ernment side of the House, had considered that Mr Holland’s statement was j unfair not to the Government but to members of the War Cabinet. One condition of comradeship in a common eni terprise was loyally to each other, j Air Holland: “The Acting-Prime MmI istei (Air Sullivan) approved of Jt.' Mr Fraser: “The Acting-Prime Minister told me that he did not approve of j the statement and that he actually ofj fered to rearrange part of it so that it j could be published. Is that not so?” t Mr Sullivan: “Correct. " MR HOLLAND’S GROUNDS FOR COMPLAINT "Another member of the War Cabinet had offered his services." continued Mr Fraser, "to trim the statement into a I form which left no reflection on Mr Holland’s colleagues Why did Air Holi land have a complaint? Did he want to stab the Government that he was cooperating with in the back? That was 1 the only ground of complaint he could j possibly have. The censor had done , what he usually did. The attention of J the Acting-Prime Minister, who was the I head of the team for the time being, ! had been called to the statement so that it could be discussed and issued in a form representing the War Cabinet ias a whole. Mr Holland was suffering I from a misconception of what his duty was. a misconception that was quite in- • explicable to himself. Why? Because he looked upon himself not as a representative of the people of the Dominion j in the War Cabinet but as a representative of certain class interests (Opposition laughter and Government hear j hears» at a time when the idea was to ; get unity of purpose and to act in the interests of the people as a whole. The Honourable Member was, according to an opinion expressed by himself, in the War Cabinet to look after certain interests he represented. Was there a basis for common action under such circumstances?”