HELD BLAMELESS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 65, 14 September 1917, Page 6

HELD BLAMELESS

" I havo no hesitation in stating that T ami convinced that no postal official was responsible for any improper or corrupt dealing with any-of the letters." In this sentence the Commissioner, Mr. H. W. Bishop, S.M., appointed to enquire into the charges against officials of the Auckland Poet Office, exonerates the accused; and he also affirms that the high reputation of the Postal Department as a -whole has emerged unblemished. This finding, both exhaustive and conclusive, will be welcomed by a public which is naturally jealous to preserve the secrecy of its communications through the Post Office. The. highxonfidential nature of its trust is, we believe, recognised at all times by the Department, and is punctiliously respected; but these are abnormal times, necessitating the introduction of a new element, which is in the Department but not of it, and which may impose super-postal restrictions in the interest of war-winning. The principal act under review by the Commissioner was an act originating,not in the Postal Department but having its authority in this new element, the censorship. In short, it was a war policy and not a postal policy. While we are not disposed to be highly critical of war duties so difficult and delicate as those carried out by the censor, we feel that the censorship is not faultless. It is under the control of the Chief of the General Staff, who has far too much other work to do to be able to supervise this branch properly, and the censorship appears to occasionally reflect intermittent beams of inspiration from elsel where. But the worst phase of the enquiry is its, revelation of bitter sectarianism—the sort of sectarianism that repels, and the sort of bitterness that defeats its own purpose. In war time, and at all times, ferocious bigotry is to be shunned like hydrophobia; and, by exposing its depravity, the enquiry, while it hurts? may yet prove purgative and remedial.