HARD CENSORS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 42, 19 February 1943, Page 3

HARD CENSORS

AUSTRALIAN HOLD-UP

Correspondent Complains Of Political Interference

Rec. 9.30 a.m. LONDON, Feb. IS. "Political interference and the parochial outlook of individual censors make the working conditions <?f overseas correspondents in Australia at times quite impossible," said the Daily Mail war correspondent, Mr. Noel Monks, when -interviewed by the World's Press News on his arrival in London after a 3 - ear in Australia. The interview appears under the heading, "Amazing Disclosures on Australian Censorship." Mr. Monks said that, in addition to the Australian censorship, overseas correspondents had to contend with General Mac Arthur's equally drastic military censorship, and he was finallv forced to return to Britain because he was not able to give a true picture of events. The political censorship refused to allow the mention of the word "censorship" in overseas dispatches, and so it was impossible for correspondents to inform their offices that their messages had been touched. Service Messages Blocked "Correspondents often were not allowed to send service messages to their offices," Mr. Monks said. "Even Germany honoured such messages," Mr. Monks said. "Constructive criticism of the Australian political regime was banned time after time," Mr. Monks said. "Even editorial comment from the newspapers, and extracts from speeches in the House of Representatives were prohibited. Even if we got through these pitfalls we still had to contend with General Mac Arthur's almost fantastic militc.ry censorship, which was the worst I have ever experienced in any war I have reported. "The Australian censors, moreover, employed intimidation methods, particularly against British correspondents. One censor threatened to refuse me permission to return to England (Mr. Monks is Australiaborn) because of the fuss I was making about the censorship."

Mr. Monks said that many important newspaper executives championed the cause of overseas correspondents who were unable to give the outside world a proper picture of events in Australia, and yet the correspondents were not able to send out important resolutions by newspaper proprietors protesting against the political rulings affecting censorship. Mr. Monks added that he was also unable to send out a message reporting the extraordinary demand made on the floor of the House in Canberra that so important and influential a patriot as Sir Keith Murdoch should be interned because he was campaigning for the correction of the muddles of the censorship and the political interference with the primary direction of the war. Australian censorship, Mr. Monks concluded; was the worst he had experienced within eight years of reporting in Abyssinia, Spain, France, the Battle of Britain, in the United States and the Middle East