PORTRAIT OF COMMUNISM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 295, 16 February 1945, Page 7

PORTRAIT OF COMMUNISM

Sir,-I write of your article on Communism and reaction, and the letters of Messrs. Winchester and Meek. I ignore anonymous letters. For myself I prefer to obtain my political facts from accredited sectional papers, ranging fromthe Financial Times through the various grades of thought and opinion to the People’s Voice. Yours is not a sectional paper; you, as Editor, are supported in your position as a Government employee by taxpayers who are Nationalist, Labour, Communist, or any one of many political shades. In a democracy any one of these factions is entitled to reasonable treatment; an attack on the beliefs of any one of them if a quite unwarranted presumption on your part. Your paper is in the fortunate position of having a complete monopoly of the prior publications of radio programmes and radio. Owners who wish to know what is to come are compelled to consult The Listener. Possessing the public monopoly, it behgves you to tread very carefully. I will not grant that you are entitled to vent your political spleen through the columns of your paper, but having done so you should at least grant the full right of reply. May I finally protest at your replies to letters; they convey nothing but illtempered intolerance of another individual’s viewpoint. I find it regrettable that a paper, in some ways the best magazine in the Dominion, should descend to the level of the daily press in its attitude to contrary opinion.

G. H.

SORRELL

(Wellington).

[The alternative to a footnote is the wastepaper basket for a foolish and _ ill-informed letter: this letter, for example, which argues (1) that we have a monopoly of the pro-grammes-the truth being that we supply the programmes every day to the daily newspapers, revised and corrected to a much later hour than our own dead-line; (2) that our article was an attack on the beliefs of Communiststhe truth being that it was just as much a tribute as a criticism, written by a_ wellinformed and not unfriendly observer; (3) that we refused Communists the right of reply-the truth being that every letter sent to us by Communists in reply to that afticle was’ published or accepted for publication. (and will therefore appear).-Ed.] }