On Forming Public Opinion.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

On Forming Public Opinion.

How is Australian public opinion on foreign affairs formed? What are its sources, and how reliable are they? How could they be improved? To answer these questions is the purpose of the writers of '"Press, Radio and World Affairs" (Melbourne University Press), a book of 14U pages, which is no less interesting to New Zealanders than to Australians. The editor, W. Macmahon Ball, who is senior lecturer in jKilitieal philosophy in the University of Melbourne, writes separate chapters on the Press an<l the radio in relation to world affairs, and liis colleagues discuss the Press in relation to Japan, the Soviet Union, the League of Nations (in the Abyssinian War) and Imperial ideals. Although it mutt be remarked that the wisdom of some of the conclusions reached is of the retrospective kind, the discussion is keen and fair, and the picture presented is on the whole a balanced one. The editor, while suggesting considerable improvements of Press cable services, admits that "the space devoted to world affairs is probablv greater than purely commercial considerations would warrant . . . " —a remark which is applicable to New Zealand, too. The relations of the Australian Press, and the Government (particularly as shown in the remarkable circumstances of Australia's trade quarrel with Japan ill lOHfi). and the nature of the Commonwealth Government Y. censorship of radio, are subjects of especial and general interest discussed in the book, which has been published under the auspices of the Victorian branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations.