FREEDOM OF PRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 100, 25 October 1934, Page 10

FREEDOM OF PRESS

VITAL WOELD NEED

CENSORSHIPS CONDEMNED

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, September 14.

Mr. 11. .). Whittick, president of tho Instkulo ut' Journalists' Conference, at Blackpool, denounced tho iron rule of censorship under which two-thirds of tho world's people exist today.

"The vital need of tho nations, exposed to the poisonous canker of misunderstanding by interference with tho current oi: accurate and impartial news, is an entirely free Press, " ho said. "This question of tho freedom of the

Press lias arisen in a new and serious form. Tho encroachment upon that freedom constitutes a menacing challenge—a challenge which we shall not shirk. Indeed, jvo shirk it at our peril and at tho peril of tho people, because a free Press is, indeed, tho rock of their liberty. It is vital that the Press should be able to throw the searching beams of truth across the waters. Wisely-directed activities of journalists provide positively essential sources of knowledge of affairs, of liappenings, and of policies. When such knowledge is cut off by the heavy hand of the censor tho nations are grievously exposed to the poisonous canker of misunderstanding. ' "Official versions handed out to a muzzled Press become a dope evil in its effects, leaving tho victims a pitiable spectacle, because tlioso in whom freedom of conscience has been implanted

are left in a condition worse than that of the sluvo enchained. We are suspicious of any system which admits of the persecution of opinion, the suppression, of free discussion of affairs, or tho dissemination of current news. This will npt prevent correspondents—has not prevented them —from doing their duty, often at greut personal risk, as events have amply proved. British correspondents have indeed upheld the great traditions of our Press in circumstances of acute atress. Happily, in the British Isles and the Dominions, the principle of freedom is woven into the fabric and is part of our heritage."