THE GOVERNMENT AND CRITICISM.

Evening Star, Issue 22595, 12 March 1937, Page 6

THE GOVERNMENT AND CRITICISM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln your article in to-night’s ‘Star,’ ‘Three Years or Four?’ you justify the late Government in its action of extending its term of office. If a Labour Government had been in power would you have given it the same fair hearing? It seems, to the average person, time that the editors of our local, newspapers ceased from filling their leading columns with political propaganda. Hardly a day has passed since Labour came into power that our local editors have Hot had something derogatory to say of Labour’s efforts_ to rule the country, most of which criticism has been written after the manner of the * Eatonswill Gazette.’ Are we to have that sort of thing served up to us, for the whole of the present Government’s term of office? Surely not. Your customers do not pay to have such one-sided views placed continuously before them, and, incidentally, why raise the price of newspapers now? I have no recollection of the price being reduced during the depression, when reduction of wages' was the order of the day.—l am, etc. Burr. March 10.

[What we said was that there was •* some reason in the arguments put forth” for the late Government’s action. The 4 Evening Star ’ has never failed to give credit to the objects and the actions of the present Government when those seemed to it to deserve credit, and its criticism on other occasions has never borne the slightest resemblance to the ‘ Eatonswill Gazette,’ The reasons for the increased price of newspapers were explained when the change was made, and they included restoration of wages, coupled with shorter working hours and increased holidays, in accordance with the Government’s policy. —Ed. E.S.]