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Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18572, 26 November 1920, Page 4

The powers of censorship over thought and politics vested by a short-sighted Parliament in the Government in the War Regulations Continuance Act have produced their first fruits in a raid on the luggage of a “ foreigner,” for the purpose of discovering books written by a British citizen and published in a British Dominion on tho subject of the Into war. Although Mr Anstey’s “Red Europe ” is said to be popular amongst parliamentarians and to have a place on the shelves of the Workers’ Educational Association, we have never seen it, and can therefore offer no Comment as to its contents. From what we know of Mr Frank Aristey, however, we are suro that it contains nothing obscene or otherwise actionable under pre-war legislation. It is quite possible that we should violently disagree with Mr Anstey’s conclusions were we permitted to peruso them, but that is not permitted. Instead, apparently, this book is being circulated amongst the most infiuential people in the Dominion—the legislators elected by the people—and is effectively protected against challenge or criticism by a law, made by those same legislators, which prohibits the entrance of the book to this country. The desirability of a censorship of opinion is extremely dubious, and the instance now brought to light certainly seems to support the view of John Stuart Mill that such, a censorship is more likely to foster error than to lead to its correction.

The cabled statement that the ex-Em-press Eugenie left behind her property valued at over £2,000,000, coupled with the recent announcement that the Prussian Diet is proposing to settle upon the Hohenzollerns an income “appropriate to their position,” suggests the observation that in the public interest these matters ought to be otherwise ordered. The Empress Eugenie had a larger share than any other individual —certainly larger than that of her husband, the Emperor—in the disaster to France in 1870. The Hohenzollerns, similarly, must take the major share of tho blame for the world war of 1914-18, for in the head of the family were vested larger executive powers than were reposed in any other individual concerned in the outbreak of war. As a matter of coriimon sense it must bo obvious that if a ruler who has played ducks and drakes with his or her people’s interests, and has entered on a course of policy which results in the slaughter of millions, is allowed to retire with enormous wealth, there is very little to deter such policies. A world which could be sufficiently hard-hearted to compel Bourbons and Hohenzollerns and other warmakers to earn their own living would be appreciably nearer the era in which wars would be recognised as hideous and avoidable evils.