FREE SPEECH: USE AND ABUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 48, 26 February 1940, Page 6

FREE SPEECH: USE AND ABUSE

While in themselves the Public Safety Emergency Regulations, issued and published last week, are clear enough, it was wise for the Prime Minister to ask Mr. Fraser, as Minister in Charge of the Police, who will have the administration of the regulations, to explain to the public in a broadcast the Government's reasons for their issue. In the first place the Government accepts full responsibility for the regulations. This Mr. Fraser made quite clear at the outset: The Commissioner of Police is the servant of the Government and, through the Government, of the people of New Zealand. Whatever power is being vested in him is being so vested by the Government in the name and on behalf of the people of the Dominion, who are the State. The reasons why the Government had to act must be familiar to most people. Mr. Fraser expressed them concisely when he said: Recently, as you know, a few individuals, some of them sincere in their beliefs but wrong in their methods, at meetings, a number of which were held in defiance of the local authorities, have shown complete disregard for the rights, feelings, and even safety of the community at large, thus inducing disorder and public danger. This applies particularly to openair meetings in public places, where provocative utterances might easily lead to violence, as they have done elsewhere. The imminent risk of riot is something no decent Government could allow to continue, and Mr. Fraser was right in emphasising this point strongly in the words: "Openair meetings held for the purpose of deliberately flouting and violating the law, and maliciously injuring the cause of New Zealand and the British Commonwealth of Nations will definitely not be permitted." At the same time the Minister promised protection to "all lawfully-constituted gatherings" in "suitable places" provided by "recognised authorities," as recommended by the recent conference of Labour executives. The. idea is to "enable the expression of opinion by those willing to abide by the laws of the country," but, added Mr. Fraser, "speakers will, of course, have to be held responsible for what they say." Now the regulations might have been unnecessary but for a sinister aspect of some of the meetings, already noted by us and stressed by Mr. Fraser in the following passage of his broadcast: The greater danger, however, arises i from the use made of some meetings by irresponsible or, worse still, evillyintentioned and disposed persons, some of them openly the agents of at least one foreign Power, to utter and thrust upon the public statements that are deliberately calculated to injure New Zealand's war effort and to prejudicially affect the recruitinjj and discipline of the Expeditionary Force. This is no more than the truth, as any citizen who has attended such meetings, listened to the speeches from the platform, and read the pamphlets and periodicals circulated, can bear out. All this has been going on under the guise of freedom of speech, but it is simply sailing under false colours and a,gross abuse of free speech. To allow it to proceed unrestrained would be, as Mr. Fraser said, for the. Government to forfeit the people's trust. It is clear that under the regulations there is no limitation of a reasonable expression of opinion that is not calculated to injure the interests of i a people at war. There is an addi-

tional protection of the liberty of the subject in the statement by Mr. Fraser on the duties,of the police: In certain circumstances, so as to safeguard still further against the possibility of any unfair curtailment of personal liberty, the facts must be submitted to the Attorney-General for his direction before action can be taken. Under these conditions there is no need to fear any real sacrifice of freedom. Only the wrongdoer will have cause for alarm.