POISON IN THE PRESS.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 815, 11 February 1916, Page 8

POISON IN THE PRESS.

How Long is it to be Tolerated?

TTra Imperial Government has given a very good lead to the Governments of Australia and. New Zealand in suppressing a so-called "Labour" paper at Glasgow, no doubt on account of the thinly-disguised disloyalty of its contents. The gentry who conduct these so-called Labour journals are very cunning. They take care not to openly advise the workers "to refrain, from enlisting, but they mischievously work for that end by making ferocious and often very silly attacks upon the "capitalistic" class, asking their readers to consider ' 'whether the Fat Man is really worth fighting for," and so on. The more sober-sided and _ intelligent artisan holds these sheets in supreme contempt, but by the Red Fed. _ element their effusions are held in high approval, and there can be no doubt whatever that they exercise a very pernicious influence on the minds of some of the younger working men.

Both in-New Zealand and in Australia there are journals which seem to do their utmost to prove that Great Britain is taking part in the war as the result of the Jingoism of certain of her statesmen, whereas the actual truth as to the causes of the war is precisely the contrary. These journals never - tire of shrieking against conscription, hut their real object is to discountenance any and every kind of military service. In Germany &uch papers would not be allowed to be published, and even in easy-going and far-too-tolerant England they are now, it would seem, being suppressed. In Australasia, however, they grow like evil weeds, and timid Governments, frightened of offending a certain class of voter, abstain from rooting up the poisonous thing. This is a state of affairs which well might be replaced by a firmer and wiser policy,: and that with as little delay as possible.