The Press Monday, June 8, 1931. The Freedom of The Press.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20257, 8 June 1931, Page 10

The Press Monday, June 8, 1931. The Freedom of The Press.

These are difficult days for newspapers. BecaH.se thq Bulletin a week or two back called Mr Lang a " liar, law'f breaker, disloyalist, defaulter, and ■ " destroyer," said that " if he had his J " desepts he would be in the dock," and called on the Governor, as guardian of the Constitution, to remove lijjn from office, the Government of New South Wales introduced a Bill making such comment a criminal offence. Now it is proposed in Greece that " offensive attacks by newspapers " from which the victims have no re- " dress except to thrash the offending " journalists" shall give injured persons the right ijj future to reply in kind. The Chamber has read a Bill for the first time which gives the victims of these attacks the i'igh< to •'reply ill the game type, space, and " position," and it may oven be in the same choice terms. In addition a public society has been formed to •'protect the honour of citizens " against Press calumnies," and to do it legally; which perhaps means to administer legal threshings, But even if it means no more than to administer legal doses of olive or castor oil, which are cheap in Greece, ifc is a sharp blow at the liberty of the Press, and all the harder to bear because delivered in the birthplace of Pericles. It is true that Socrates was put to death for criticising, or for merely asking awkward questions, but civilisation is not advancing very fast if the only progress made in two thousand five hundred years is the substitution of castor oil for hemlock. And the trouble is—it is no use guarding the secret any longer —that Greece has done no more than move into line with half the so-called civilised countries of Europe. It has been the law in Germany for sixty years that "the "responsible editor of ft periodical " publication' must exhibit, without "additions or omissions, at the request " of any public authority who may be "concerned therein, or of a private " person, a correction of a statement " which has appeared in his paper, if "the correction is signed by its con- •' tributor, is not itself libellous, and " confines itself to a statement of actual " faets." Not only must the correction appear; it must appear in the number immediately following' its reception, unless that issue is already in type, and so long as it occupies no. more space than the offending statement or criticism, must be printed free. France has had a similar law for fifty years, but allows the complainant twice as much space as that filled by the offending statement, and if payment is claimed for any surplus beyond this the newspaper has to seek it to a Court of law. Belgium, as a close neighbour, agrees with France, and even post-war Austria does, with a trifling qualifications. Publication may be refused if the correction is received more than two months after the offence, if another correction has appeared, or if the correction itself would be punishable; but except for those safeguards the correction must appear at once, or the editor pay anything from two thousand to twenty thousand crowns. The position is very much the same in Denmark and-Finland, and of course very much worse in Russia, Italy, and Turkey though the Young Turks made the freedom of the Press one of the floorplahks of the new order, until (as an amusing article in the May issue of the New Statesman and Nation explains) someone took the liberty of standing on it. It ia only in the United States and what is still free land in our own Empire that the newspapers have no" more to fear than libel and slander laws which make, winking m offence if it injures somebody in bis trade or profession, exposes him to the contempt or ridicule of his friends, and cannot be proved to have been honest and kindly, and done in defence |of the realm. If that liberty goes it 'is not clear what the newspapers can do, or their public-spirited readers, unless they emulate Holy Willie when the wicked offend, and reserve criticism, for their prayers. And it is nowhere on record that even Willie's fervent appeal was answered to the full extent of Gawn Hamilton's deserts.