TOO MUCH CENSOR

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 121, 23 January 1915, Page 3

TOO MUCH CENSOR

PRESS RESENTMENT. SYDNEjY, Jan. 22. The Sydney Morning Herald, in a leader on the censors, after disclaiming any intention to attack Senator Pearce, or any of his staff on details cji administration;, points out the need there is to get the Government and public in closer touch through the press, so that Australian aid to the Mother Country may be as full and free as possible. The duty of the Press is clear. It does not stand for irresponsible newsmongering. ■ Unfortunately many persons insist that it does so stand, and when clothed with authority, they act towards the newspapers as if the latter were m;ischiefmakers. The Press during the war has shown a deer* profound* and searching responsibility, and cheerfully accepted most restrictions neecssary for right dealing with the position in Australia. There is a disposition to treat the public as a child, and the Press as its plaything. We get cables censored in London, and again censored in Australia, as if the fountain of authority in the war were here and not there. New Zealand, an island, publishes matter without fear which is not available here The censors in the Anstralian continent have been busy and focus their own news and have grown reciprocally narrow, and war news is available in Melbourne which Sydney papers are not given the opportunity to use, The Herald demands consistency, and especially the public's right to judge between bad and good news. The paper concludes: The public has done its duty by going about its business and refraining from panics and responding to the call for men to fight, cut must be treated as of adult stature and the Press as its. watchtower, a bulwark which cannot be ignored or suppressed except at a risk which no Government in its senses will dare to take. LONDON, Jan. 21. The Times, in a leader, says: "We have strongly expressed the opinion that the silence of the administration upon the unparallelled efforts Britain is making to prosecute the war on the Continent is unjustifiably dangerous. The nation wants to know what the Government is doing to ensure the necessary reinforcements. If this desire is general here how rirach stronger must it be in France, whose people have suffered the horrors of war. They long to hear more regarding the efforts we are making in the common cause and when they are likely to bear fruit in their deliverance.