MUZZLING THE PRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 103, 5 May 1926, Page 6

MUZZLING THE PRESS.

One of the most serious phases of the present conflict is the action of the strikers in destroying the traditional freedom of the Press, and following this up by stopping the publication of every newspaper in. the Kingdom. This deliberate attack upon the Fourth Estate is fraught with grave disaster to the Nation as a whole, and also to the strikers responsible for the ukase, upon whom it may have a serious reflex action. 1 Throughout the period of inquiry and negotiation the Press of Britain, , as a whole, has presented an attitude of restraint and fairness in its comment which has excited admiration all over I the world. The leaders of the men : have themselves admitted that nothing • was said which was likely to arouse antagonism on the coal fields or to ' hamper the course of negotiation. So ! far from this the responsible dailies of Britain have worked ceaselessly to create a natmosphere favourable to settlement. They have been ill-requited; dictation as to the editorial policy has been followed by a complete embargo on publication, and, as a result, the whole country, in ignorance of the facts of the case, will be in some degree at the mercy of scare-mongers and fomenters of trouble and riot. Com- . mnnist groups throughout England have secret printing presses, whence in times of peace a flood of poisoned propaganda is poured into the homes of the industrialists. Those presses, in the hands of unscrupulous fanatics, are capable of doing untold mischief in the , absence of the steadying influence provided by a statement of the facts in , the newspapers. It is very easy for them to manu- • facture "stories of riots and deliberate i attacks upon workers, and to inflame i the strikers to such a degree as to i render settlement impossible. They ■ have attempted such a policy in fictitious "strike bulletins" in earlier disputes, but the prompt exposures of their ■ falsities by the whole of the Press has ' nullified their anarchistic efforts. With ' this sobering influence out of the way, the anti-constitutionalists will have full play for their inflammatory propaganda, and manipulated stories may gain a currency and possibly an acceptance from the ignorant and unthinking disastrous to the cause of reconciliation and peace. They nitay even lead to scenes Lof violence and bloodshed. A calm statement of the facts through the ( usual channels of information would check any such, tendency, and, therefore, all thinking people must seriously deplore this minatory phase of an acute conflict. A modern newspaper is so complex an organism that improvisation in the time of emergency is no easy matter, 1 but no doubt the heads of all the large • papers are energetically planning pro- , duction, in reduced form. It is to be '. hoped that, as in the case of the New York printing strike, their efforts will > prove successful, and that, in the cause i of peace, some effective antidote to the , virus of Communism. will thus be j available.