PERIL OF THE PRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 208, 3 September 1927, Page 9

PERIL OF THE PRESS.

Warning By The Lord Chief

Justice.

PANDERING TO DOLLARS.

BUFFALO, September 2.

An address was delivered before the annual meeting of the American Bar Association by the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Hewart. He amid that 30 and more years ago there were already signs in many newspaper offices of a contest for supremacy between what might be called the editorial department on the one side and the business—which is to a great extent the advertising— other side. "The contest seems to hive been j decided in that interval,'' said Lord j Hewart, "and in an ; enormous number of cases it appear* to have been decided in favour of the business department. Side by *ide with this it is impossible not to observe another development. I mean the systematic and increasing concentration of the canted of a great number of newspapers under one and the same hand. "Well, there is no law at presnnt to prevent newspapers from being treated as mere commercial commodities, as if they were so much soap, or oil, or tinned meat. If the function of newspapers is to be simply to increase and inflame the already deplorable power of mere money in public affairs, is there any reason why in any respect whatsoever the law should exhibit any special tenderness toward them?"