THE NATIONAL PAPER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 192S. Nonsense!

NZ Truth, Issue 1201, 6 December 1928, Page 6

THE NATIONAL PAPER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1925. Nonsense!

TEGS human mind was ever cluttered with a complex of petty prejudice, and while, maybe, the Condition was not so easily discernible m yesterday's time of slow communication, to-day's' avenues of news dissemination appear to make too easy a course for loose utterance and partlydigested thought. The modern mirrors of expression seem to be smeared and blurred with the misty outpourings' of people who, apprehending the minor figments of uncircumspect behavior, affirm their own shortsightedness by blazoning these shortcomings, yet overlooking the merit which lies m the distance. There is too greal a. stress laid by certain folk on the subject oj: j "Evils." ■ They see evil m this procedure, deadly dangers m that practice,' pernicious and demoralizing influences m almost everything else, and it does seem regrettable that some of the very people to whom we have grown accustomed to raise our eyes for spiritual guidance, should infuse into their tenets such a plethora of intolerance. . This is true more particularly of the rant and cant with which some critics embroider their pronouncements regarding products of the American motion picture industry. Certainly, it is true that for a number of years New Zealand, m parallel with the experience of other British "countries, suffered the indignity of witnessing a stream of undesirable sentiment from . the celluloid ribbon which uncoiled itself from other shores. One must, however, be fair and admit that the output from the major corporations within the past three years has rigorously been pruned, either m the country of origin or at the hands of our own film censors. Last week the Press Association reported the sweeping assertions made' m a statement issued by the Life and Work Committee of the Presbyterian Church m Auckland, wherein the compilers said they "felt safe m saying, that moving pictures continue to exercise a most pernicious and demoralizing influence on our young people. "When they are not immoral they are inane . . . ajad by their exhibitions of luxurious living they tend to make young peopk discontented with their humdrum lot." They continue: "While it is true that the best people m our churches do not attend pictures to any extent, it is also true that the time is more than ripe for n, stiffening up of our censorship of films ..." It is with hesitation that one would pour contumely upon the heads of those who essay at stiffening our moral backbone, but it is suggested that at least our tutelage might with advantage be conducted from the top of the wall, that our vision be not obscured by the dividing bricks, and that we may view unhampered the paddocks of thought and circumstance which stretch on either side.