FREE PRESS AID TO VICTORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23769, 24 September 1940, Page 6

FREE PRESS AID TO VICTORY

The Labour peer Lord Strabolgi, speaking in London at a meeting of the National Council for Civil Liboitics on the necessity of preserving the freedo in of tlio press, said that Britain had the finest press in the world, with a high standard of honour. Editors, leader-writers, reporters and correspondents were the best censors, and knew what to print and what to leave out. The keeping up of the public morale and tlio presentation of the news could be left safely in their experienced hands. Lord Strabolgi said that he wished to pay high tribute to the whole press for the great .contribution they had made, and—given freedom of action —would continue to make, to the winning of tho war. One of the main causes of the breakdown of public morale in France was tho suppression of all free opinion in the French newspapers. Milton's battle cry, "Give me, above all other liberties, the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience," should not be forgotten. If the British press had been regimented, as some authorities seemed to desire, there would have been no change of Government last May, and Britain would now be well on 'her way to defeat. The freedom of the press was doubly necessary since tho former Oppositions in Parliament had entered ine Government