Liberty To Curtail Liberty

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 92, 28 March 1941, Page 4

Liberty To Curtail Liberty

OMETHING was said last week by the Prime Minister that many have thought but few had the courage to declare. In his reply to the attack on the censorship regulations he said: "I am not going to bow down to a doctrine of the sacredness of the Press or to the belief that the Press is sacrosanct." In other words he was not going to bow down to the image of liberty and endanger liberty itself. What he thought it necessary to do in the present emergency he would do even if, to do it, he had to suspend what normally were sacred rights. He of course made it clear that what was taken away would be given back. The astonishing thing, however, is that such a declaration calls for comment. If we were reasonable beings instead of bundles of habits and prejudices we would not have to be reminded that liberty is our own creation. We would know that it was made for man, by man; that it never has been, and never can be, independent of time and circumstance; that to make a graven image of it is idolatry; and that the Devil has always been able to quote the Scriptures. Some of those who make the loudest noise in defence of liberty are its least devoted servants. They may even be its deliberate betrayers. Nor do we forget that the Prime Minister’s remark was made in defence of his right to curb the newspapers. No newspaper questions that right. Every issue of a newspaper -unless it appears only once-is a demonstration of the fact that liberty is limited. There is the elementary fact to begin with that nothing appears in print, however true it may be-and many rejected contributions are demonstrably true-if it is libellous. The more we value liberty the stricter that rule invariably is, since liberty otherwise would become a monstrous tyranny. We must have the courage to fight for liberty when liberty is endangered. But we must also have the common sense to restrain liberty when liberty is itself the danger.