REPLIES TO EDITORIAL COMMENT

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 8

REPLIES TO EDITORIAL COMMENT

“Official Responsibility”

DR. BUTCHERS’S PALMERSTON NORTH ADDRESS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Aly attention has been drawn to the sub-leader in this mornings paper dealing with Dr. Butchers’s address at tile Technical High School break-up ceremony on Wednesday evening. It is only fair to mention that Dr. Butchers made it very clear at the outset of his addresS that anything he might say was not said in his official capacity as head of the correspondence school 'but was the expression of his own personal and private opinion only. In a co-educational school such as the Technical High School here Dr. Butchers was stressing the importance and advantages of the equality of the sexes and went on to show how in his opinion that principle could be carried throughout our whole community life. Possibly the Press Association report may not have made clear what Dr. Butchers said and the remarks with which lie prefaced his address, nevertheless, in view of the strong opinion that your paper has expressed on the subject of liberty and freedom of speech your attitude toward Dr. Butchers is difficult to understand. Furthermore. your endeavour to make political capital out of the expressions of private opinion of Dr. Butchers is more to be deprecated than any possible lack of discretion on his part.— I am, etc.. Al. H. ORAM, Chairman, Palmerston North - High School Board of Governors. December 17.

Sir,—l read with interest your article criticising Dr. Butchers, and I desire to congratulate Dr. Butchers not only on his excellent address but on the wide publicity given to it by your article. The idea that a married woman should receive an independent income is so important that any kind of prominence given to it is desirable. 1 iim glad indeed to see that Dr. Butchers and your paper have placed the proposal in the limelight.

■ On the further issue raised by you— Dr. Butchers’s right as a Government officer to publicly advocate his views— I cannot support you. I think it is a subject for ironic comment that after an intensive campaign by the Press and the National Party on the desirability of freedom of speech, a leading paper, engaged in that campaign, should question the freedom of Dr. Butchers, to propound his scholarly and learned address. Undesirable it may be for a public servant to make an unrestrained entry into party politics—although even that is arguable—but .intelligent and learned contributions to matters of political and economic interest should be encouraged from public servants. They should be Induced to develop their knowledge and ideas on these matters, and to discuss them, so that we may have an enlightened and educated service, not a group of dumb and repressed nonentities. Apart from that desirability, the public expression of opinion should be regarded as the inherent and sacred right of every man and woman, should lie welcomed and not repressed, and the expression of the views of a cultured and enlightened man like Dr. Butchers, should be given special opportuntics for dissemination and discussion. A’iews of men like him are of far higher community value than the partisan arguments of professional writers, and if the Press is claimant for the preservation of its freedom, it should be equally claimant for the freedom of each and all.—l am, etc., S. W. FITZHERBERT, Palmerston North, December 17.

Sir, —1 have read your comments on Dr. Butchers's address at Palmerston North with interest. I was very interested in Dr. Butchers’s remarks also, for I have a faint recollection of some remarks that he made in his book, “Education in New Zealand,” which were not altogether complimentary to our women. It would be very interesting if “The Dominion” would publish these for the benefit of readers.—l am. etc., INTERESTED.

Sir, — J believe in the freedom of the Press, also in freedom of thought and expression for the citizen. These are both part and parcel of our British heritage. To my mind it is an ominous thing that, in this democratic Dominion, any section of the Press, enjoying freedom of expression itself in its editorials and articles, even to the point of anonymity of authorship, should seek to deny similar freedom to citizens who seek to offer to the public some constructive sociological suggestion in these, difficult times—simply because those citizens are public servants. Discuss the merits and demerits of the suggestions made, by all means. But to endeavour to stifle ideas at birth —surely that is a dictatorial and not a democratic thing to do. At the outset of my address at Palmerston North‘l specifically called the attention of the Press representatives and lhe audience to the fact that I was -not present in my capacity as an officer of the Education Department, but that T\was speaking my own opinions solely. But the Press representatives did not report that, as I supposed they would. I was speaking to the pupils and parents of a eo-educational post-pri-mary school, ami I thought it quite appropriate to ask why the principles of sex • equality, successfully practised there, should not be carried forward into the after-life of the pupils. I also thought it appropriate to indicate how. in my opinion, this might be done, with advantage to the nation. T have no intention of entering into any newspaper controversy regarding my proposals, but I do most strongly contest your objection to my exercising my right to discuss in public the sociological problems of Ihe day.— I am. etc..

A. G. BUTCHERS. Wellington, December 17.

['l'he attempt to associate our criticism of Dr. ButchersA address with the question of the freedom of the Press suggests an effort to divert attention from the real issue raised. We made it quite clear that what we took exception to was the action of a public servant—not a private individual—an officer of the Education Department, advocating a new political philosophy before a gathering of school children. One would expeet that on such an occasion the head of a branch of the Department of Education would have no difficulty in finding suitable subjects within the scope of his duties on which to address scholars without having to travel afield into the debatable realm of politics. Dr. Butchers says he was not present at. this gathering in his capacity as an officer of the Education Department. It

is singularly unfortunate that he should have chosen a school breaking-up ceremony’ as the occasion on which to divest himself of his official status and speak as a private citizen. The inference may reasonably be drawn that he realised that what he had to say to the children was not of a nature which should properly come from a public servant holding the position he holds. This merely serves to confirm our own expressed views.]