The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1944. THE CENSORSHIP.

Evening Star, Issue 25180, 20 May 1944, Page 4

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1944. THE CENSORSHIP.

The suggestion of the Australian Chief Justice, Sir John Latham, that the patties in the Press censorship dispute, instead of proceeding further in a conflict in the courts, should meet and try to find means of placing the censorship upon a practical basis, has riot been long in producing the best fruits. The Federal Government as .1 whole has shown itself more reasonable than the ministerial head of the censorship, Mr Calwell, who was plainly the wrong man for that position. It is now agreed that censorship shall be imposed in future exclusively for reasons of defence security, which is as it should be. It shall not prevent the reporting of industrial disputes or stoppages, and it will not he an offence to write, " in view of the difficulties that the Government has created for itself." That was ono of the sentences to which Mr Cahvell. in his display of Fascist proclivities, objected. Public morale, in future, is not to be regarded as such a sensitive plant. And. " except in the case of an immediate and obvious danger to defence xrairitv. breach of the censorship directions shall be dealt with by prosecution not bv the seizure of the proposed publication," which in a non-Fascist country, for the offence of the Sydney journals, should not have been possible. The La lioiir Government, helped, perhaps," by earlier comments of the

judges of the High Court, has conceded the case of the newspapers. On their part the statement is accepted that the censorship was never meant tobe used for anything but national security : it is administration that has been at fault. There will be less room for administrators to err with tho new code of rules that has been agreed upon. That code is explained to be based on the principles laid down by the Prime Minister after this dispute arose. " The censorship," said Mr Curtin, " should never be used to censor political opinions, and should never be used in relation to civil order other than that made necessary by security." Concerning those principles we commented at the time that the censorship by,which they were observed would not make much friction in practice. They aiv< the same principles which threo New Zealand editors, by direct observation as well as from inquiry, have found satisfying the requirements of both British and American authorities, and no time should be lost by the Now Zealand Government in adopting them here. As Mr E. V. Dumbleton, one of the three editors mentioned, indicated in an address given by him yesterday, even military security should not make the same demands now for the repression of news as were natural, perhaps, when the Japanese were nearer to our shores. Mere domestic reasons for repression should not operate at all. " What is good enough for Britain and America should be good enough for us, and what they think would be bad for them is bad for us."