BRITISH CENSORSHIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 October 1940, Page 5

BRITISH CENSORSHIP

COMPLAINT TO MINISTER 1 DELETIONS FROM ARTICLES SENT OVERSEAS. AFTER THEIR PUBLICATION IN BRITAIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, October 8. A deputation from the National Council of Civil Liberties complained to the Minister of Information, Mr Duff Cooper, that newspaper articles published in Britain had been drastically censored before dispatch to Empire and foreign countries. The secretary, Mr Ronald Kidd, declared that editors in Canada, South Africa and elsewhere, had protested against the mutilation of dispatches from Britain. He alleged that the deletions were not made because the opinions were harmful to the successful prosecution of the war but because the censorship disliked the political opinions in them. The deputation urged Mr Cooper to obtain a revision of the “drastic powers” under which- the Minister of Home Security is able to ban journals considered harmful to the successful prosecution of the war. Mr Duff Cooper promised to consider the points, but he said it . must be conceded that emergency powers were necessary in war time.