“ERROR OF JUDGMENT”
OPENING OF CORRESPONDENCE. MR. HOLLAND’S COMPLAINT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Inquiries were instituted yesterday by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, into the complaint by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, that correspondence of his had been opened and examined by an official of the Censorship Department. The result of these is contained in a letter written later in the day to Mr Holland by the Prime Minister, who states that the action was entirely contrary to instructions, letters to or from members of Parliament not being subject to censorship. The full text of Mr. Fraser's letter is as follows: — “I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of January 22, in which you state that while a communication containing highly confidential and strictly private information of great importance addressed to your private secretary at Wellington while in the hands of the Post Office was opened and examined by an official of the Censorship Department before being delivered. “As the result of immediate inquiries which I' instituted I am advised by the Controller of Censorship, Mr. G. McNamara, that he has seen the envelope and finds that it was opened by a censor in Blenheim. This action is entirely contrary to instructions, which are perfectly clear oh the point that letters to or from Members of Parliament are not subject to censorship. Mr McNamara states that the letter should not have ben opened as, on the face of it, it was clearly on official paper, and that the censor possibly did not notice the address though instructions are clear that it should be read. The Controller feels sure that the opening was merely an error of judgment on the part of the censor at Blenheim and is taking up the matter with that officer with a view to obtaining a full explanation of his action. “I understand that Mr. McNamara has interviewed you personally and given you his explanation of the matter as far as he is able to do so at i present.”
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19430126.2.11
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
339“ERROR OF JUDGMENT” Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Times-Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in