FREE SPEECH

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21715, 24 February 1936, Page 10

FREE SPEECH

Mil SEMITE'S. OPINIONS [THE PRESS Special Service] WELLINGTON, February 22. The value of free speech and the untrammelled interchange of thoughts was stressed by the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Sample), at the annual dinner of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers at Wellington, when he made it clear that the Government hoped to encourage development in this direction. Referring To the speech of Professor J. Shelley earlier in the evening, the Minister said that the professor had remarked that it would be a good thing for New Zealand and the rest of the world if men and nations were to tell one another just what they thought, if they possessed the human courage that would compel them to do so. "I am satisfied that Professor Shelley has struck a very important note," continued Mr Semple. "I am sure that one of the things that handicap progress is the lack of understanding, a thing that stultifies and minimises the natural thoughts of men. It creates suspicion; suspicion breeds fear; fear breeds hatred; and hatred breeds internal conflict and external wars. If we possessed sufficient courage to speak up when we thought we should, 1 am sure we would live in a better world."

"The film industry in Great Britain is making great advances,'' said Dr. Keith L. Barry, the well-known film critic and British Broadcasting Corporation speaker, in Wellington. For the last two years he has broadcast frequently both in England and on the Continent, his principal subjects being music and films. Dr. Barry said that in the last 12 months large sums of money had been poured into the British film industry. The important point about it ail was that the most prominent authors in the world—men like H. G. Wells, James Barrie, and Bernard Shaw—were now interested in writing for the films. "Films have become quite 'social' in London, and may be regarded as having reached their highest point in this respect, when Queen Mary attended two film premiers in the same week in London early in December," he said. "The films are also attracting the attention of the world's leading composers, and in the big films of to-day the music is mostly of a very high order."

After lying idle in Auckland Harbour for 16 months, the Island schooner Tahitienne has been sold privately for £l5O. Last week at Auckland the vessel was offered for sale at auction, but was withdrawn when she failed to attract a bid of more than £IOO. The Tahitienne is now owned by a syndicate of Jugoslavs, who intend using the vessel for fishing. An engine to cost about £IOOO to £I2OO is to be installed, and other alterations and repairs to the vessel are expected to increase the total cost of refitting to about £3OOO. Constructed at Los Angeles in 1923, the vessel was intended for a private yacht for Captain A. C. Norton, an American master mariner, who died before she was finished. The hull was purchased by Messrs S. R. Maxwell and Company, Island traders, who fitted the ship as a trading vessel for the inter-island trade in the South Pacific, where she was under the French flag for some years. Because of the slackness of trade she was withdrawn from commission, and later she was sent to be 'sold at Auckland, where she arrived on October 13, 1934.