BOOK CENSORSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1935, Page 6

BOOK CENSORSHIP.

a _____ L- FREEDOM THE READER'S RIGHT d 1 (Br J.C.) | a An Auckland member of Parliament elicited e some information in the Houee from the e- Minister of Customs regarding the censorship - impeded on books imported into the Dominion. j '■ I The position calls for some comment. The : Customs Department is the official censoring . " j body, and ae it is obviously impossible for w ; j that Department—or any other Government o j Department, for that matter —to be a com-

peteut judge of literal are, a small committee has been set up consisting- of a librarian, a bookseller and a university professor, to advise

the Customs Department by sampling books and reporting: thereon. The composition of the committee k weak, clearly, because the most necessary member of such a body, an author of books, has no place on it. A professional writer is the person bast qualified by far to express an opinion on the contents of a book, if a censorship k to be carried oat at aIL He k behind the soencs. It is very doubtful whether a bookseller should be given any position on a censoring body, since his sole business is to sell as many books as possible, regardless of their literary or other qualitiesAs to the librarian, he may be a liberalminded man or the reverse. I have known some absurd banning? of book* in Xew Zealand libraries. A university professor is a useful member of a censoring body; the college man or the progressive school is not likely to place any bar in the way t of all possible knowledge. Bat it is extremely doubtfal whether any system of* book censorship can be satfefactory. Intelligent people naturally resent being debarred free access to the world's literature. The world's thought moves more quickly than the.censor in most countries. We have seen proof of that in Xew Zealand, as in Australia, and, rather strangely, in the Irish Free State. There has been a tendency to regard with suspicion anything new and frank and startling. It k amusing to recall the names of books now classed as harmless back numbers which on first publication aroused squeals of alarm from easily-shocked t>eop'e: they were banned by officialdom until tae prohibition became ridiculous. Censorship becomes mttt objectionable when there is a political influence in the background. Governments have always been prone to condemn anything in literature which is likely to enlarge the outlook of the governed. AH through history the restriction of knowledge and freedom of expression has been the weapon of rulers. That censorship exists to-day in some countr!es to a degree that is an amazing contradiction of the modem scientific spirit of inquiry. Any approach to such censorships in political or philosophical matters should be reskted most strongly in our country. My own view j« that all censorships are wrong in principle. The reader of books is entitled to the utmost freedom of choice. The ftookshop and the public library are intended to serve readers of all tastes". Those who read merely for amusement are easily satkfied. as a rule: it is the more thoughtful reader who seeks the widest possible range of literature, without restrictions imposed by possibly prejudiced and narrow censors or officials whose intellectual growth Is stunted by regulations. A vast amount could be written on this subject: but I think the reasonable ethics of the problem are expressed pithily and well In a speech I have just read, the Inaugural address by Professor H. La ski (professor of political economy in the Unjversitv of London 2, delivered to the delegates of "the Librarv Association in Manchester last month. -The address bore very largely on the restrictions imposed on free thought and wide reading. The professor told the thousand librarian* assembled—our Dr. G. H. Scholefield, Parliamentary librarian, was among them—that the heritage of culture should be made as widelv accessible as possible. Those in charge of books were not entitled to narrow the substance of that heritage because of political or religious or philosophical views. -'The only | test we can apply to the contents of the public library k the test of significance. If the" book j meets that test in the judgment of competent persons the public is entitled to find it on the I shelves of the librarv. The only censorship ! we are entitled to impose arises* oat of this j criterion. ... Our business is to offer him j i <he reader) access to knowledge of the human | adventure. VTe are not justified in barring .gate* waich lead to roads we mav not happen !to approve." The world. Professor Laski said later on Jin his address, was full of one-idea fanatics ; who wanted to make their pettv standard* | the measure of everybody's freedom. Thev were a menace to civilisation because thev sought to stereotype belief by persecution. The lamps of reason were going out in Europe, through taw spirit of intolerance. The tenor jof tlie processor's excellent speech was the I Hp* ' r eedom of expression and of reading | the lifting of any barriers to a complete knowI ledge of the lite of the world, the Hie that he well described in brief as "the human j adventure.