A CENSOR'S DEFENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 3 September 1915, Page 3

A CENSOR'S DEFENCE.

OVER-CONFIDENCE AND

PESSIMISM

With reference to a complaint lately made in the Parliament 01 New South Wales that an extreme censorship is exercised in. Australia over war news, and that recruiting would be stimulated if the public were ledi to take a less optimistic view of the situation, the Deputy Chief Censor has submitted a report to the Minister for Defence, in which he states that the complaint gives him an opportunity to dispel a very widespread misconception of the functions of the censorship (says a Melbourne telegram to the . Sydney Daily Telegraph). It is commonly supposed that the meagreness of news from the front is- due to censors not giving information or suppressing cable news.

The real facts are that news of the progress of the war, so far as Australia, is concerned, is collected by press agencies in London and elsewhere, and is derived partly from correspondents and partly from official communiques of the London Press Bureau. Australian censors do not collect or give out news. That is entirely the function of the press. Censors may under certain circumstances hold or suppress news cabled from the seat of war, but in Practice that is reduced to a minimum, n addition, it has been the policy of the censorship in Australia to encourage rather than suppress a, very wide publication of soldiers' communications to friends, subject occasionally to slight censorship of military details. At the actual front <".•■ the collection of news and for a record of •events, apart from authorised press correspondents, who are seldom eye-witnesses of events, there are officers whose duty it is to keep an official record, and who from time to time send official despatches for the generals commanding. These ajre from time to time published by the Home Government through the Official Press Bureau. Of course all news from the actual front is subject to the discretion, of the generals in command, and is dealt with having regard to the actual military situation. The public may be assured that matter dealing with our own troops at Gallipoli which is at the present time withheld is small, and so far as the public is concerned is of minor importance. Practically the whole information, so far as it has been made available in Australia, is in the hands of the press. As to the.suggestion, that the public may have'been misled by the too optimistic comments of our local papers, the Deputy Chief Censor considers that the right of comment and the reasonable liberty of the press should not be interfered with, unless the seriousness of the situation requires this action. "It is right," he remarked, "that I should cordially acknowledge the cooperation of the responsible press with the censorship department. My duty before being detailed for my present work required me t-o follow closely the Frogress of the war from day to day. have with perhaps larger opportunities, and to a certain degree with an inside knowledge, kept all the phases in view. I think the public may properly be warned against that form of self-deception that some people mistake for loyalty which leads them to underrate the enemy. Sober-minded people know now that so far as Germany is concerned we are at death grips with a highly organised military people, brave and confident, well led, and well supplied, and that to command final victory for the cause which we deem right we shall require to call up all our resources. It is not real patriotism to slur over this. But on the. other hand, there i© nothing new in the present situation that should unduly depress our people, or be made the reason for gloom or pessimism. If one alternative is foolish, the other is criminal. There is no better way of stimulating recruiting," concluded the Deputy Chief Censor, "than, the publication of spirit-stirring stories, fresh and unconventional, of the gallant lads now fighting at Gallipoli."