The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1911. FALLIBLE CENSORSHIPS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1097, 8 April 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1911. FALLIBLE CENSORSHIPS.

Writing a few days ago on the demand of certain leading ■ schoolmasters at Auckland for the appointment of a public censor of theatrical posters, we remarked that owing to inevitable differences of opinion, censorship was "a very uncertain and often unsatisfactory check on public abuses." This fact probably is not sufficiently realised by a large section of the public. There is too great a readiness to cry out for a censorship of this or that, without considering whether the proposed remedy would be free from evils of its own or whether the public morals could be as efficiently protected by any other means. The latest demand of this kind is for a censorship of kincmatograph pictures, and. it is an instance of the universal want of thought on the general question of censorship when we find a paper like i the Auckland Observer cordially supporting the idea of a censor for posand roundly condemning the proposal that the same treatment should be applied to picture films. There must surely be some general principle or principles which (with whatever necessary adaptations to local and temporary conditions) should guide us in discussing how to check tho harm that may be clone by offensive publications of every sort—pictorial, printed, or otherwise. . '■ If censorship is to be tho chosen method, it will be necessary to find cjuitc exceptional people to exercise it. Not very long ago the" principal circulating libraries in. Great Britain combined to withhold from all their patrons such books as they thought the majority of the latter would' object to having in their houses. Not long after this decision was taken these very libraries issued broadcast a certain novel, by a lady whose reputation as .an author should certainly have put them on their guard. This book was described by a weekly journal which nobody could suspect of squeamishness as "vulgar," "intolerable," "unique, we hope, in so-called daring but really shameless fiction." It will be seen that the effect of the censorship in this particular instance was merely to facilitate the entry of an objectionable book into homes whose heads might otherwise have kept it out. A more common result was instanced at Hull, where the Municipal Libraries Committee banned a novel b.y another well-known writer. Canon Lambert, speaking at the meeting of the committee, said: "I would just as soon send a daughter of mine to a house infected with diphtheria or typhoid fever as put that book into her hands." This remark was reported and freely repeated. The Hull Daily Mail stated soon afterwards that a local bookseller had had thirteen orders for that particular book on one day, thirty the next day, and scores later. Before the clergyman spoke he had had no demand for it. Whether a book is good or bad, a censor's ban is likely to be the best advertisement it has any chance of obtaining. Public libraries can hardly avoid establishing some sort of censorship. Being unable to put every printed book on then' shelves, they must make a selection, but if they do this according to the opinions of a librarian or a committeo as to what constitutes "wholesome reading," the results are liable to be absurd. Thus, at the Glasgow libraries, the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett are banned, while among modern books, admission is refused to Anna liarenina, Resurrection, Tess of the D'Urbervillcs, Jude the Obscure, and Tono Bungay. Citizens are not allowed to read Whitman's poems in the reference library until one' of tho senior librarians has decided by staring at them whether they are the proper sort of persons to be so privileged. The inquiry that was held in England not long ago on the censorship of plays- showed that thero was grave cause for dissatisfaction, and the verdicts of the censor were the targets of some effective ridicule. A more serious note was struck by Mr. Arnold Daly, *the eminent New York actor-manager, when he protested', through an interviewer, against the suppression by the London- censor of Mr. Bernard Shaw's The, Showing-up of Blanco Posuct. "The minute anyone attempts to really benefit the public he is declared immoral," said Mr. Daly. "... Anything is permitted on the stage as long as one does not make the public think. . . . But let a man to-day print vice as disgusting, bestial, and. working harm, and-he is dubbed immoral; let him make vice attractive, charming, and wholly romantic, and he is hailed with delight." Mr.. Daly's words remind us of one of the sayings of the greatest of protesters against censorship : "If it comes to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to he prohibited than truth itself." The sentence, of course, is from the Areopayitica of John Milton, a work which, in the. opinion of De Quincey, exhausted all the arguments upon its great theme. It is true that Milton was concerned only for the liberty of printing books, and pamphlets, and that what he" had most in mind were' works on theology, science, and politics. Yet many of his arguments apply exactly to the present-day moral censorship —actual or proposed—of other sorts of productions. He saw that some knowledge of evil was necessary to the building up of character. Only the man who could apprehend the . baits and seeming pleasures of .vice

and yet prefer that which is indeed hotter could become a "true warfaring Christian." He asked the unanswerable question: "llow shall the licensers themselves lie confided in, unless we can confer upon them, or they assume to-themselves, above all others in the land, the grace of infallibility and uncorruptedncss?" He saw in "this authentic Spanish policy of licensing hooks," "t-lio immediate image of a Star Chamber decree to that purpose made in those tihies when that, Court did the rest of those her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer." Mention of the Star Chamber may seem to introduce the reflection that the power of a Judge to forbid publication of Court proceedings is a kind of censorship, and we have lately seen how grievously that power; even in the honoured and trusted hands of the judiciary, may be abused. But is there no means of protection against the contagion of published vice ! There is, and we could wish that our modern advocates of censorship would seek it in the pages of the Arcopagilica. They would have read thero that books must he watched in the interest of Church and Commonwealth, ancl "sharpest justice" done upon them. _ The true principle is free publication joined with a law for the prompt and sufficient punishment of those responsible for the dissemination of offending matter. This is tho principle that has been adopted in our own Indecent Publications Act, and during the short period since that measure came into force, it seems to have done good: A decision which is virtually the joint outcome of tho deliberations of legislators and a Court of law is more likely to be in accord with the soundest practical sense of the community than any private verdict of a censor. Under exceptional circumstances, such as those of war, censorships are defensible, but they should be the exception and not the rule.