DELETIONS FROM SCRIPT

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25427, 25 February 1948, Page 3

DELETIONS FROM SCRIPT

ADDRESS PREPARED FOR BROADCAST

ALLEGATIONS BY FARMER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, February 24. Because a script he had prepared for broadcasting to assist the Aid-for-Britain appeal had so many deletions made to it by the National Broadcasting Service, Mr D. G. Gordon, of Taihape. had refused permission for his address to be broadcast. He reported this to a meeting of the Wellington Central Provincial District of Federated Farmers, held at Marton to-day. Mr Gordon said that anything which appeared in the slightest degree to reflect on the Government had been deleted. In one paragraph, he had- referred to the factors limiting production in New Zealand at present as being many and varied, and the Broadcasting Service had deleted the words “any conception of maximum production from New Zealand as a whole was simply wishful thinking.” Another paragraph deleted read: “If farmers give way at this time to the popular urge of minimum work for maximum pay, no doubt they will have an easier time, but in the meantime Britain may starve, and the moral force that this country needs to put it on the right lines will be dissipated.” Other portions of the script which met with disapproval from the Broadcasting Service included an appeal for farmers to overcome political feelings in their response to the call for higher production. The script was cut where Mr Gordon had written “We know in many cases that the toll of increased production will fall on ourselves or our families, and the net result may be increased taxation.”