IMPORTANCE OF FREE PRESS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 85, 4 January 1940, Page 7

IMPORTANCE OF FREE PRESS

Defence Of Liberty (British Oflicial Wireless.) RUGBY, January 2. The importance of maintaining a free Press in time of war was strongly emphasized by Mr. J. A. Spender, former editor of the "Westminster Gazette” aud a famous journalist, in a speech in London. Recalling that during the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln had asked whether the United States could be half slave and half free, Mr. Spender said that was a question for the whole world today, and, in a special sense, for the world Press. In half Europe, he said, the free Press had not only been extinguished, but. its machinery appropriated and distorted into an instrument of tyranny. Dealing with an argument which was plausible, specially _in wartime, for equalizing Press conditions between slave countries and free, he said those favouring this stressed the apparent advantages to be obtained by the suppression not only of news likely to be useful to the enemy, but also of evidence of internal weaknesses. How impressive, said the partisans, of tyranny, is the spectacle of national unity presented by the Germans! How ragged and disorderly by contrast is the appearance of the free peoples, quarrelling with one another and criticizing the Government! Nazi Propaganda. "This argument,” said Mr. Spender, “if it can so be called, is all the time answering itself. Throughout the neutral world German propaganda has become a laughing stock. Within Germany the ruling faction appears to be more aud more at sea about the right use of the controlled Press and about how much it dare disclose the truth about its dealings with Russia, about the aims of its policy, and about the course of the war. “It needs, according to its own theory of totalitarianism, the co-opera-tion of the entire people, and this people it feeds witli foolisli stories —the sinking of the Athenia, the British instigation of the Munich bomb plot, and British incitement to Finland —to which no intelligent person will give credence.

“What effect this has on the German people is beyond our guessing, but we can say with much confidence that it has destroyed German credit in other countries.”

Mr. Spender contrasted the picture with that of the British free Press system which, lie said, gave the world moans of judging for itself and formed for tlie British Government a mirror of public opinion. After dealing with the necessity for self-discipline and stating the first duty of tlie Press to be to supply truthful news and honest comment, lie concluded that without a free Press “Parliament would be a secret debating society and law courts Star Chambers. There is no liberty of talking without liberty of writing. Tlie liberty of (lie Press is everybody’s liberty.”

Mr. J. A. Spender, who was born in 1802, and educated at Balllol College. Oxford, where he gained a firstclass in Classical Mods., was editor of tlie “Westminster Gazette” from 1890 till 1922, and a member of the Royal Commission which inquired into (lie private manufacture of armaments four years ago. He Ims written ninny book's and is well known for his “Comments nf Bagshot.’’ his “Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,” “Life of Lord Oxford and Asquith,” ami other works on journalism and politics.