BRITISH PRESS

Evening Star, Issue 25941, 5 November 1946, Page 5

BRITISH PRESS

FUTILITY OF INQUIRY

COMMISSION CAN DISCLOSE NOTHING NEW

(N.Z.P.A. Special' Correspondent.)

LONDON, November 4

Stating that the British' Government is committed to establishing a Royal Commission on the Press without any clear idea of what its purpose it to be, the ‘Economist’ notes that Mr Herbert Morrison was very careful to avoid committing the Government to any action when the commission finally reports.

“He knows,” says the ‘Economist,’ “ only too. well how 'difficult it is to devise means which are feasible and democratic to remedy the present system—a system which puts power and profit into the same hands, and allows enormous scope for the projection of the opinion of a single individual.”

The paper continues that the point is not whether there are defects in the present organisation of the Press, but whether the ' Royal Commission would do any good, and’that is very doubtful. There is no" need to elicit facts, for the'*’facts are known. Nor could it pronounce on proposals for reform of the Press, for there are no proposals. “ It would be far better,” the paper says, “for those who do not like the present state of affairs in the Press to do some hard thinking about practical measures of reform. When these are produced and canvassed in public, the time will. have come for authoritative examination of them. The Royal Commission’s primary function is to elicit facts, and* it will be like fastening a steam engine to a handcart to set up such a ponderous machine, to decide what reforms should be carried out. It'is possible that the Royal Commission may stimulate the hard thinking required, but it is a very cumbersome.way of going about it.”

COMMISSION’S ALTERNATIVES. The ‘ Spectator ’ remarks that the Royal Commission’s recommendations will either lead to Government action or they will not. _ If they do not, the commission is futile.. If they do, the result will take some form of regulation which, as infringing. Press freedom, will be wholly pernicious.

It adds that Parliament, through the medium'of the ' Labour Government, has bowed to the behest of the National Union of Journalists, which; through its closed shop policy, threatens the independence of’ the ■journalist more than any so-called Press baron and is granted an inquiry which,' bv tlie nature. of things, puts the British Press in the dock in the eyes df the. world.