CENSORSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 9

CENSORSHIP.

BRITISH SYSTEM.

"NEVER SINISTER."

AMERICAN'S TRIBUTE.

Under the British way of doing things in wartime, the censor can sit on the. lid of almost anything except criticism of himr-rlf and his Government. That is one of the reasons why Britain's wartime ceiwir.-hip i s sometimes silly but no*or sinister (said Raymond Daniel] in ri cable from London published in the. "New York Times" on December 11.

Censorship ie a, necessary evil in modern war, especially in a country where freedom of speech and movement H considerably greater than allowed to the regimentr.l populations of Germany and Italy. There is much to be seen and heard here by the most casual observer Unit would be most helpful to the, enemy. It the censorship job notonly to curb wilful treason, fifth columnists and spits, but to curb the burblings of innocent bunglers.

Since the outbreak of the war there has been cpnsoiship, and from the outset it has been dearly understood that it was solely for the purpose of preventing information helpful to the enemy from leaving the country. There has never been the slightest intention by responsible officials, either in the Chamberlain or the. Churchill Governments, to use it for any other purpose. Yet the censorship has been almost as much criticised here, as abroad, and as much abused as the Minis-try of Information, whose twin it. i>, contradictory as that may seem. Alternative Is Silence. There are several reasons for this. One is that the British have embarked oo a course of truth-tolling from which they will not and cannot deviate now. Since in wartime it is sometimes impossible to tell the truth without helping the enemy, this leaves only one alternative sometimes, and that is tt» say nothing. There has. been «so much said about censorship that it may have the unfortunate result of undermining the confidence of American readers in what ie sent by correspondents here. That would be tooth unfortunate and unfounded. There is no censor looking over my shoulder as I write, and it cannot be said too forcefully th. , while deletions are often made, it is never without the knowledge of the writer, who has the right to decide whether the emendations so distort his story that it would be better not to send it at all. It should further be said that, while sometimes it is impossible to tell what happened immediately after the event, as far aa this reporter ie concerned there ie no inside etory he could tell hi<* frienda if he were home this minute, except for a few amusing anecdotes which for one reason or another are not suitable for cabling. People Suspicion*. The word censorship is as repugnant to the Britons as it ie to Americans, and people here are almost as suspicious of it as they are in the United States. That ie one reason why the %ard-worked censors, are the most abused of all those who are trying their (beet to win, this war and put themselves out of jobs. For the British newspaper men the censorship as "voluntary," although the inadvertent publication of something that the Government believes harmful may lead to prosecution under the Defence Act. For foreigners it is compulsory. In view of all the criticism that has been heaped on these gentlemen at home and abroad since the Blitzkrieg 'began, perhaps it would be helpful to consider the way in which they are organised and how they function. By some mischance, when Britain went to war the censorship was established as. a sort of appendage to the Ministry of Information. There was the first anomaly. The Department charged with disseminating information wae placed in charge of one whose duty it was to prevent its disaemination. To make the whole thing completely mad, the Ministry of Information never received complete authority to decide what could be said, and what muet "be smothered. And so there grew up a syetem whereby information concerning one Department was broadcast by another only to be suppressed by the latter'* subordinate. Everybody blamed everybody else for the inevitable contretemps, complaints were courteously heard, reforms were promised and nobody got anywhere. Newspapers found themselves more and more circumscribed, people became more and more suspicious of the accuracy of their own Government's communiques, which without being untruthful became more and more puzzling, especially when they were read by the people of the heavily iboiubed areas where the communiques said little damage was done except to golf courses and ehorehes. People Not "Sissies. , * The people in this country have stood a, lot from the Germans. They are prepared to stand more. But it makes them uneaey and unhappy to think that the Government regards them as sissies. They can take it and they want to be treated like grown-ups, not kidded by nonsensical transparent -subterfuges, such as pretending that the Nazis missed Birmingham and bombed Manchester by mistake when the papers here and abroad were allowed to make an unmistakable reference to the right city by printing the German communique as a prelude to their own reporter's personal observations. How to reconcile the requirements of national safety, the desire for truthtelling and the maintenance of freedom of speech is one of Alfred Duff Cooper's big headaches and is the problem that is worrying the whole War Cabinet. The • rovernment doee not want to kid the United States into thinking that victory is in the bag, and on the other hand it rloee not want to alarm its own people by providing too graphic a picture of the death and destruction all around them. Xews travels fast these days, and it has been estimated authoritatively that eighteen minutes after a story reaches New Y T ork it is in Berlin. How Difficulties Arise. At the head of the censorship under Mr. Duff Cooper, Minister of Information, is a former lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe. Hβ has tried, zealously to codify the rules and regulations and establish the rule of law, but his difficulty is, that rules have to be interpreted by individual subordinates whose salary, is less than that of an ordinary Fleet Street subeditor. These gentlemen, confronted with the choice of taking a chance or playing safe, generally make the obvious decision. ■

When that happens the correspondent whoso story has been questioned is notified. He can appeal to a higher authority at the Ministry or consent to the deletions. If lie takes the former \ course his story may be held up for [ hours. If he takes the latter his story will go immediately. Sometimes he would rather not have it sent at all and sometimes the puts are so trivial that they arc not worth arguing about. j

The important point ie that the dcci- J sion is Left to him and there is never i :i question of adding anything to what i lias boon written. !

In daytime the censors work above ground in the cable company offices and have teletypes ovev which they can send the questioned messages to higher authority at the Ministry. At night they work in cramped quarters underground and have to read the whole business over the telephone to the Ministry because there is no room for bulky teletypes down there. Censor's Lot Not Happy. That slows things up considerably. Even then there are likely to be more delays, becaus-c if it really is a ticklish point the whole story has to be referred to the Air Ministry, the Admiralty or War Office, whichever is most closely concerned, and sometimes it goes to ail three. The man on duty, worrying about dispositions of ships and troope, when confronted by a problem involving the foreign Press has a tendency to delay a decision for the week-end" and that makes life difficult for a correspondent of a daily newspaper.

Some of these men are journalist*;, some are ex-servicemen, some arc teachers and others would like to be any one of these. All try their best, but each in his own wav.

These guardians of the cable and telephone outlets for foreign correspondents have taken an awful boating because they not only have to argue with irritated journalists, but arc natural targets for criticism by the Frees itself. The Press censor's lot is not a happy one, for lie. is damned if he cuts and damned if he doesn't. Compared with him the postal censor hue an easy life, for all he has to do, if he suspects a phrase in a, letter, is to return it to the sender with a printed slip like a publisher's rejection slip. There is no argument there, and it is rare that letter writer* have a very wide forum to express their dissent.