FREEDOM ASSOCIATION

Evening Star, Issue 24919, 17 July 1943, Page 3

FREEDOM ASSOCIATION

DISBANDMENT DECIDED POLITICAL CENSORSHIP ALLEGED ' ((P.A.) AUCKLAND, July 16. A decision to discontinue the activities of the New Zealand Freedom Association and to wind up its affairs forthwith was reached at recent meetings of foundation members and the executive committee. This was announced to-day by the director of the association, Mr B. M. Algie. In a report considered at these meetings it was pointed out that war conditions had made it exceedingly difficult for the association to continue with the work which it had originally set out to do.. For the.seven years of its tenure of office the Government had insisted upon using the broadcasting services as a purely party monopoly. No one outside a parliamentary session could appear before the microphone unless he was first invited to do 60 by ths Government and unless and until what he proposed to say had been perused and approved by the Government or by one of its numerous officials. The* Freedom Association had been continuously denied the privilege of broadcasting from any station, even though it had always been ready and willing to pay the normal rates charged to companies and firms using the service for

advertising purposes. In addition, the recently enacted war-time regulations governing the use of paper for printing purposes had been so administered as to make the work of the association, even more difficult. "The heaviest blow of all fell," said Mr Algie in his statement, " when we were informed that we could not use our own stocks of paper for the printing of our pamphlets, circulars, and notices unless we first obtained from the bureaucracy that dominates us a permit to do so. We were told that before our application for such a permit could be considered it would be necessary to submit a draft of the material which we desired to publish. This was an indirect form of censorship, which we regarded as being utterlv intolerable in a so-called free country. In these circumstances the association said, it was considered advisable to discontinue the association's activities and to release Mr Algie from his obligations and leave him entirelv free to offer his services in the parliamentary field if and when he should choose to do so. Mr Algie_ resigned a professorship at the Auckland University College to take up work with the Frecdoia Association.