CENSORSHIP CONTRASTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 4

CENSORSHIP CONTRASTS

"COR the first time since they were drafted and certified by the Attorney-General, on October 24, 1939, and later issued by Order-in-Council, a contrast between the New Zealand Censorship and Publicity Emergency Regulations, 1939, and the system of Press censorship in operation in Great Britain has been provided by journalists from this country, who have had experiene of both and are thus capable of making an informed comparison. Their findings and disclosures are at once disquieting and astonishing. For nearly four and a half years the New Zealand Press has operated under the paralysing hand of a censorship of which few outside journalistic circles are even vaguely aware. Unlike the English system, explained in the cablegram published yesterday, the New Zealand censorship is arbitrary. It lacks any of the characteristics of goodwill or mutual trust inherent in the British method. An official in Wellington, curiously enough styled the Director of Publicity, is the censor-in-chief, who may pass for publication, prohibit, delete, amend, release or retain anything and everything. The whole range of news and comment, overseas and at home, is his to control. This is clear from Regulation 13, which sets out that "no person shall in any manner likely to prejudice the public safety or the efficient prosecution of any . . . operations of His Majesty's Forces . . . publish any information" relating to six specified categories of subjects, the last. of which is as follows:— "Any other matter whatsoever, information as to which would or might bo directly or indirectly useful to any State with which His Majesty is at war. That, of course, means whatever the Director of Publicity may decide that it means. It might mean, for instance, that an article critical of the New Zealand censorship must not be published. As a fact, the censorship in this country is acutely sensitive to criticism. To quote from the regulations: "If the Director of Publicity is of opinion that the publication or unrestricted publication of any information . . . would be prejudicial to the public safety, he may give . . . notice in writing prohibiting the publication of the information. . . ." It is expressly forbidden to indicate "any omission, alteration, or addition due to the exercise of the powers of censorship." Further, to make bureaucracy invulnerable in its dark tower, newspapers are forbidden to indicate that "any matter or kind of matter has been required to be submitted to censorship " or that "a censor has refused his authority for the printing or publication of any matter or kind of matter." Thus the most preposterous act of censorship is, and must remain, above and beyond publication and comment. The most astute law draughtsman in the world could scarcely draw the net more closely, or entangle the Press of New Zealand more effectively. No newspaper would dare publish anything rejected or deleted by the Director of Publicity. In England, rejected or deleted matter may be published on the understanding that the publisher may have to stand trial for his temerity, but, if convicted., he will be found guilty, not of defying the censor, but of publishing something against the public interest. In this country the regulations are obviously so framed that it is an offence to publish any rejected matter. In short, against the decision of the Director of Publicity there is no appeal. Contrast this with the British system of allowing appeal by way of the Law Courts, to the highest judicial authority.

In the case of overseas correspondents the censorship is even more intolerable and high-handed. No correspondent has any rights, and a message for publication overseas may be placed on the "rejected" file and no effort whatever made to advise the sender that this has been done. On inquiry, the correspondent may find that various deletions or alterations have been made to his text. There is no obligation upon the censorship authorities to inform him of any act of rejection or deletion. In Britain there is such an obligation, and if a delay of fifteen minutes occurs the sender is immediately notified. In short, the censorship as it operates in New Zealand, and as, conceivably, it might operate at the sweet will of the Government of the day for as long after the war as seemed expedient, is of the essence of dictatorship. Most of its prohibitions relate to "maintenance of public morale." Anything which an official or the Government may consider destructive of morale may be put on the taboo list, and some of the subjects which are so placed can only be connected with the war by reason of the fact that everything New Zealanders may do or leave undone is so connected. The implied assumption that our people are not 'fit to be trusted with facts of first-class public importance is an insult to our fighting men and the sturdy generation that bred them. Of course, all these limitations bear the saving clause that nothing may be published "without reference to the censor," a subterfuge which is frequently not worth the testing. The censorship is operating to-day in connection with subjects of which the public knows nothing, and may know nothing, until the regulations have been revised or abolished. Even at this late date, the whole censorship set-up in this country is due for drastic revision, along the lines of the more enlightened and democratic system operating in Great Britain.