FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23364, 2 December 1937, Page 21

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

TO THE EDITOR Sir,—ln this morning’s Issue of the Otago Daily Times there are 11 letters to the editor. Five of them are antiGovernment in tone, one is pro-Gqv-ernment, and the remainder deal with non-political matters This is the usual proportion in the correspondence columns ot the Dunedin newspapers, and a similar remark could be applied with truth to the newspapers of the Dominion as a whole. Broadly speaking. it may also be said at present that political criticism in the leading columns of New Zealand newspapers is almost unanimously anti-Govern-ment. One feels impelled to paraphrase the recent words of Mr James Begg in reference to Mr J. A. Lee, MP. and ask: “ Has the Government no friends?” Personally I have no affiliation to either party, but whichever side will make the nearest approach to giving the country a monetary system that will make u possible for New Zealand to utilise its great resources without piling up a huge unpayable debt, that side will get my vote; and I feel convinced that that is substantially the political creed

of a large and growing body of public opinion in New Zealand to-day. Judged by that standard, up to the present I see no alternative' to the present Administration: but if Mr Adam Hamilton can convince that large body of public opinion otherwise, it lies open to conviction.—l am, etc. S# December 1.