RADIO CENSORSHIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21855, 18 July 1934, Page 15

RADIO CENSORSHIP

Sir, —Your correspondent Mr. M. V. Reeve-Smith denies my charge that immoral records have been broadcast. The local authority admits the charge and has made representation to Wellington in accord with my criticism. Your paper published on Monday a report of a disgraceful wrestling scene at Gisborne last Saturday. Broadcast descriptions of professional boxing and wrestling are very degrading. Mr. Donald, when Postmaster-General, admitted to me his personal dislike of these, but permitted them because of popular demand. The questionnaire which was taken of listeners' preferences was, I believe, largely to justify these broadcasts by public demand, which could not be justified morally. What decent citizen would attempt to justify morally a broadcast description of the Gisborne "wrestling?" I cannot endorse the monkey and parrot psychology which would have New Zealand ape the broadcasting policy of England—or Germany, Italy or America. The right and wise course is for us to work out a policy of our own, and not to slavishly imitate Britain in her present experimental stage. Writers like the Rev. W. Jellie and Mr. I. Meltzer are sore because Professor Sewell's address was banned. That address stated: "But, as a matter of fact, in the Victorian period there was no real liberty to believe as men wished." That is tlntrue. Again he says: "I can think at the moment of only one active politician in England who rigorously applies the Christian test to his political activitiesMr. George Lansbury." This is misleading and objectionable and smacks of "intellectual pride." Who can reasonablv claim to know every "active politician in England?" "For my own part, I think the most reasonable of all modernists is Canon Streeter," w"e are told. But this savours of assumed omniscience, like the assertion of the universal negative quoted above re "no real liberty." Does Mr. Sewell pretend to know all the modernists of Western civilisation and be able to say which is "the most reasonable?" It might be argued that another speaker could follow Mr. Sewell and correct all his false and misleading statements. But, broadcast misrepresentations can never be recalled or undone. Sowing good seed afterward does not kill the weeds already sown. Disregard of this fact is the radical error in the thinking of all who have complained at the banning of Professor Sewell's address. J. G. Hughes, Th.D.