FREEDOM OF PRESS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 47, 25 February 1939, Page 8

FREEDOM OF PRESS

TENDENCY TO RESTRICTION SIR CECIL LEYS’ ADDRESS [ Per Press Association.! HANMER SPRINGS, Feb. 24. At the annual meeting of the United Press Association Limited al Manmer, the chairman. Sir Cecil Leys, read an address to shareholders. “The Press of the world is on trial,” said the speaker. “Beginning with the establishment of the Soviet in Russia under Lenin, up to the conditions that we find to-day in New Zealand, the freedom of the Press has been challenged. Autocracy and totalitarianism cannot tolerate free expression of opinion. It is necessary for their progress ancQ even their existence that the right of free speech should cease to exist. With them if newspapers are to continue they require to be the echoes of Government intention and policy. When Signor Mussolini came to power and Herr Hitler rose to the position of undisputed arbiter of Germany’s destinies, they were equally quick to seize upon the lesson that Russia had taught that no voice other than that of the Government should be heard by the people.”

Russian Censorship Russia had established a censorship over news that passed beyond its borders, and correspondents, of which there were many, and able, could only hint at the conditions of the country and endeavour to impart their convictions by innuendo, which could not, with 90 per cent, of their readers outside Russia, convey their views on the great experiment which one hundred and seventy-five million people were enduring. Italy under Signor Mussolini had improved upon : this technique. When a correspondent was, in the view of the censor, too [frank, he was told that his presence ; was undesirable. In 1933, ten foreign correspondents were expelled from Rome. i In the case of Germany countries [adjacent to its borders were threatened when any statement adverse to the Government appeared in the Press. They were coerced into publishing no report reflecting upon the Internal conditions of Germany. But this was not enough, for violent protests were made by the Ambassador in Washington, when remarks derogatory to Herr Hitler and his methods were made by anyone prominently placed. Mayor La Guardia, of New York, who was outspoken in his condemnation of the persecution of the Jews was the subject of many protests by the German Embassy in Washington. Control Not Wanted

Fortunately the Government of the United States made the invariable reply that it had not, nor wished for, any control over the free speech of its citizens or its Press. Germany got no change from America in the matter of frank comment on its affairs. But while this attitude in defence of free speech on foreign countries was bluntly asserted, the Press of the United States, during the second term of Franklin Roosevelt, has been persistently attacked, not so much by the President himself as by members of his Cabinet, who, it is safe to say, would not comment without the knowledge of the head of the Government. “The trouble is that while every proposal of the Government receives the widest publicity from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, the policy has found no editorial acceptance,” said Sir Cecil Leys. “In most respects the policy of Mr. Roosevelt is analogous to that of our Government. It is meeting a position of unemployment by the establishment of immense public works. W.P.A. projects are exactly the same as we find in New Zealand in unremunerative channels of State employment. Even the United States are groaning under the taxation that there schemes involve and what the critics of Mr. Roosevelt’s administration inveigh against is that they find no permanent solution of these difficulties and that the possibilities of taxation even in such a wealthy country are limited.

Very Like New Zealand “So the position in America is not unlike that we face to-day in New Zealand, for the attack on the Press of this country is prompted not by any suppression of Ihe information that the Government would like to impart to the public, but by a dislike of criticism of Government methods and policies. It is the practice and not the conviction of totalitarian and Socialist Governments to belittle the honesty and purposes of the Press, which in most countries and certainly in this, endeavour to serve the interests of the community and promote the welfare of the people as a whole.” Chester Rowell, well-known publicist, continued the speaker, in an article dealing with the attitude of the Roosevelt administration and the international onslaught on the freedom of the Press, with which he rightly said, all other liberties of the individual were involved, uttered a word of warning about the responsibilities that this freedom imposed: The newspapers must realise, he wrote, not only that the people’s liberties are dependent on theirs, but also that their freedom depends on the deserved confidence of the people. That means that the readers of a paper must believe, by long experience, that the paper, never takes a public position for a private motive; that its owners realise that the public position of the paper does not fcelong to them or their advertisers, but is held in trust for the community; that its editor must realise that the freedom of the Press is no more the special privilege of journalists than academic freedom is the special privilege of professors, but that both are public trusts, in the public Interest. “It remains for English speaking countries to meet attacks on the rights of free speech, and only by a recognition of the obligations that our hard won freedom entails will this be successful,” said Sir Cecil Leys. Messrs. C. W. Earle, C.M.G., and W. J. Blundell retired from the Board of Directors by rotation. Mr. W. J. Blundell did not offer himself for re-election and Mr. E. A. Blundell i was appointed in Ms stead. Mr. Earle was re-elected, and at a subsequent