ACTION AGAINST NEWSPAPER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27225, 17 December 1953, Page 11

ACTION AGAINST NEWSPAPER

CABINET CONCERNED AT JUDGMENT

(Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 16. Yesterday’s judgment in the action against the “Sydney Morning Herald” under the Sydney City Council (Disclosure of Allegations) Act, in which Mr Justice Owen, in the Supreme Court, refused to order the newspaper to disclose information on graft allegations to police officers, has caused serious concern to State Ministers, says the political correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The Attorney-General (Mr W. F. Sheahan) probably will prepare a report for the Cabinet on the judgment. The correspondent says that it is known that State Ministers, and particularly the Premier (Mr J. J. Cahill) have been increasingly worried by the evidence they have received of widespread public hostility to the act. He adds: “Some Ministers now feel they have been strongly misled, and that even at this stage the Cabinet would be wise to agree to the appointment of a Royal Commission (into allegations of corruption in the Sydney City Council). “They complain that not only has the Government incurred serious hostility because of its introduction of the act, but that it has also ‘lost face’ by its failure at its first attempt to obtain an order against a newspaper under the provisions of the act. “While the Cabinet discusses yesterday’s judgment, the Ministers who most strongly favoured the introduction of the act will, it is understood, be asked by their colleagues to justify the predicament in which the Government now finds itself.”

64 Mau Mau Killed.— Security forces in Kenya killed 64 Mau Mau and captured 52 last week. One African member of the security forces was killed and six wounded.—Nairobi, Dec. 14. Runaway Railway Waggon.— The waggon of a derailed goods train crashed into a crossing keepers’ house near Pont de I’Arche today and stopped a few inches from the bed where he and his wife were sleeping. The couple and their baby daughter were not injured—Paris. December 15.