CRITICISM OF PRESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 176, 25 June 1938, Page 18

CRITICISM OF PRESS.

REPLY TO MINISTER. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, June 23. “The audience that listened to the Minister of Education last night must have been puzzled by his reference to this journal,” says the Star-Sun. “He introduced the reference by saying that he ‘used to think there was a limit to unfairness,’ and then quoted an isolated sentence from an editorial. . “Mr Nash had said that criticism was the essence of progress, but it should be meted out evenly to all parties. The comment of the StarSun was that there was only one party whose objective was the socialisation of means of production, distribution and exchange, and if the newspaper Press was unanimously • opposed to such an objective 'it must direct its criticism accordingly and not cloud the main issue with irrelevancies disguised as impartiality.’ “If that plain statement of fact seems to Mr Fraser to exceed the limit of unfairness he could find unfairness in the Post Office Directory. It is the Government’s policy that is under criticism, and anything else must- be irrelevant to the main issue. Mr Fraser evidently read into the sentence a suggestion that the Government should not be given credit even for good deeds or good intentions. The newspapers give dailv proof that they do not subscribe to that doctrine, but they can surely not he expected to praise a policy of which they strongly disapprove.”