PUBLIC'S CONFIDENCE DESTROYED

Evening Star, Issue 25172, 11 May 1944, Page 9

PUBLIC'S CONFIDENCE DESTROYED

SYDNEY, May 10. The conference of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors' Association unanimously passed a resolution viewing with grave anxiety the extent to which the censorship has been used for purposes not related to security. The full text of the resolution is as.' follows: " This conference, representing all the daily metropolitan newspapers in Australia, views with grave anxiety the oxtent to which the censorship has been used for purposes entirely unrelated to security. It declares its unreserved acceptance of a censorship designed to prevent the disclosure of any matter of military value to the enemy. It is,-con-vinced that any attempt to use the censorship to maintain morale by suppression, as was done in France in 1940, is wrong and dangerous, and that any further effort to distort or limit reports of industrial disputes is contrary to the public interest. The conference believes that the knowledge that such matters are subject to censorship will destroy public confidence in what is published, and therefore declares itself irrevocably opposed to a continuance of such practices. This conference fully supports the action of certain newspapers in challenging the political censorship, even to the extent of suffering suppression in order to uphold the principles of freedom of expression within the requirements of national ■ security."