NEWSPAPERS HIT BY WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1936, Page 10

NEWSPAPERS HIT BY WAR

NO INTEREST IN ARMS TRADE. LONDON, May 7. 'l’lie lion. Esmond Harmsworth. chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, gave evidence on behalf of newspaper proprietors at yesterdays sitting of the Arms Commission, at Westminster. He said that while a number of people holding shares in various newspaper companies- might be interested in firms making armaments, the N.P.A. could find no evidence whatever that any of the directors or propriety s of newspapers belonging to the N.P.A. were identified with such firms in a manner that would justify the slightest suggestion that the newspapers under their control were used/to advocate the manufacture of armaments so that pecuniary gain might accrue to them. None of the majority shareholders was personally interested in any armaments films. The amourit of advertising carried by national newspapers and paid for by armaments firms was negligible. There, was no pressure of any kind which armaments firms could bring to bear, directly or indirectly, on the newspapers, and, owing to the fallingaff in advertisements -and the greatly increased cost of paper, no industry' was more adversely affected by die outbreak of war than the newspapers. From the motive of pure ielf-interest they would tend to oppose war. !