HOW THE RUSSIAN CENSOR WORKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12833, 5 April 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW THE RUSSIAN CENSO R WORKS.

WHAT NEWSPAPERS SUFFER.- - : Axthottgh it has been, said l that during th« present war the Japanese censorship has / been more severe than that of the Russians,.••"■■"> , .'S-J writes Frederick Dolman, in the Strand .', ■ s Magazine, this fact is the more extraordin- •, ary since, with" Russia, press censorship is ;\ not merely rendered necessary by war, 'but ' * is an instrument of government during _ ■'? peace: — |« "The press censorship is a Department . ;,' in the Ministry of the Interior, and is the most expensive part of its administrative . : Jv machinery. Each of the governmental districts—they number 60 in European Russia \'M has its censor, with a. staff of assistants'! more or less qualified as linguists. The .. ,-■.'. proov-sheets of every Russian newspaper . : . 45 have first to be submitted to ono or the other of these officials before it can bo pub- ■ lished, at the peril of suspension, or even ■ • suppression, if this precaution is not observed. Any article or part of an article,; :-S any paragraph, or even advertisement, dis- - approved of by this functionary has a pen ' ' drawn through it, and on the proofs being returned to the newspaper office the editor/" has to cut out the offending type. Some- . "' times large amounts of literary matter, oil ■ preparing which much time and labour have " be spent, must thus bo, sacrificed and its space filled up as 'best'it can be with "copy " kept in stock for its unimpeachable " character in the eyes of the censor/' Proof-.."'-'..,.', sheets of substituted matter have also to . ' bo submitted before the paper is passed for press. In the case of daily papers in large towns the censor passes' the last sheets' - i about midnight. After this Moscow'may burn to the ground, or the Tsar may be assassinatd, but not a line of new matter. ... can be -out into the columns of the paper. "Once or twice editorial'ingenuity has got the better of despotic authority. The editor of the Siberian Gazette at Tomsk re-' "* - V ceived back his' set of proof sheets from the .-1 censor with fully half the proposed contents /- of the morrow's paper ruled out, He and -A' his staff wciv confronted with a most for- ■ J mida'ble task—.some articles had ;o lie patch- '"' -* ed up in order to repau the ravages of (ha ~' . censor's pen, others had to be alio"Hli.n- "1 ' ."■'■:* rewritten, and fresh " -opv" found to takft' the. place of whole columns of news which'"-'' ? " ~" had been ruthlessly destroyed. Li despair'" • '■'. '■'% the editoi gave up the task and-soot Hi* . } paper to press in the pitiable condition in which it had been reduced by official inter- - - ference. Ah he doubtless expected would ' toe the case, the numerous blank spaces made a greater impression upon the public . - ■;. mind than the most trenchant article at- - ■ tacking the press censorship could hav« ' . ; 'i'i done In a few days there was published an edict from the .Minister of the Interior- - Blank spaces in the pages of newspapersarc- an impliedl protest against preliminary , censorship, and cannot bo permitted '" " lie present war has increased the work of the censors regarding the foreign press. n.u e ?T> articlo ' which Presumed to sue- ' gest that Russian feeling on the war was no* ■ . J universally enthusiastic, was" ruthlessly blocked out when it reached St. Petersburg m the Mail, the Times tri-weekly edition" The issue of the Mail for October 21. 1904 •* suffered from two operations of the censor!-* '" *•*'?! •ws implement. The victim in one. ca-«a was a telegram from .the Vienna correspon- • ' * dent of the limes, describing a serious riot' ''„ -:[0 at Odessa; the other was a short article " *" ' -1 from one of its Russian correspondents deal- ''* ■-■ '4 lug with the misapplication of the funds ' which had been raised for the work of the -Ked Cross Society on • the battlefields of Manchuria. The censorship is evident] ! most severe on any suggestion unfavourable 5"...- ' : i;'l to the probity of Russian officials. -*--•■'* ■YJ J -■" J Mr. Percival Gibbon's article in the Daily*' Fj.' '.-1 Mail—" Lost Illusions: How Russia meets - "'"- V r "w73 disaster "—which was written from St '<"" letersburg, was accorded similar treatment '■';."'"* •' The Russian Government shoots deserters" -"' ••* '" from the army, but is unwilling that the"ii.T idm m fact should be known. At any rate, that is ; * --'-><?? mm the natural conclusion to be drawn from. TZ '•■■'■■ V the censor's obliteration of a drawing in the ' •' 1H Daily Graphic last March, depicting the exe- - vH cution of two recaptured soldiers before the w ' «H Odessa garrison. The few words of letter- - " ?B| press descriptive of the picture, which ajv ', - 9 peared in the corner of the page, suffered, i-a of course, the same fate. Among an illiter- ' ate ])eople such a picture, if it once got into ,1 general circulation, would be far more "per- ' nicious " from the official point of view than: . any number of articles which are intelligible .... only to the educated few; and it may be supposed that the censors are instructed to be particularly stringent in their examina- \* • ■ tion of the work of newspaper artists. The most amusing example of Russian censorship, however, occurred as long ago as 1891, in connection with a seemingly inoffensive picture in the weekly Graphic: --- To discover the " sedition ' lurking in this v i representation of the manly sport in which v the then Tsarevitch'was participating dining his visit to India, might well become, indeed, the object of a puzzle competition. ' The best solutions that, after much con- -;'; sideration, I can suggest are as. follows: ... \ ■'■ The picture was seditious" because the - - /yi son of the Tsar of All the Russias was not -. placed in the centre of the group of sportsmen. It was "seditious" because it indi- ~-', cated, with the accompanying letterpress' (also "blacked out"), that ho was not skilful or ready enough with the gun to shoot the panther. It was "seditious" because , it suggested that ho owed his personal safety to the greater skill and readiness of other members of the party.