WARNING FOR FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26607, 1 November 1947, Page 7

WARNING FOR FUTURE

MR MORRISON SEEKS RULING Ree. 9 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 3.1. After Mr Gerry Allighan had been expelled, and Mr Arthur Heighway and Mr Evelyn Walkden had been reprimanded in, the. House of Commons last night, 'Mr Herbert Morrison moved a resolution dealing with future treatment of news agencies, newspapers, and their representatives who offer bribes to members. fje said that it was not proposed' to take action against journalists or nevvspapers involved in the cases with which they had , been dealing because they could not have known that an offence was necessarily being committed, but he thought it necessary to place on record a warning for the future. He thought that was reasonable. Captain H. F. Crookshank (Con., Gainsborough) argued that the resolution was unnecessary. If the necessity arose in future, the case could be dealt with on its merits. Mr Haydn Davies (Lab., Pancras) and Mr Vernon Bartlett (Ind., Bridgwater) appealed to the Government not to go forward with the resolution, the latter saying that it was bound to leave the impression that there was serious corruption in the press, whereas every member knew that it was not so. Brigadier J. G. Foster (Con., Northwich) said the cardinal principle of the journalists’ code of honour was that a journalist must not disclose his source of information. It was a terrible breach of that code that the House should have the power to summon any journalist before them and ask where he got his information. Mr Wilson Harris (Ind., Cambridge University) said the resolution was a serious reflection on lobby correspondents against whom no charge had ever been brought. Mr Morrison said he was anxious that the matter should not be Settled in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning, but it must not be taken that he was going to exempt any particular trade or profession from any proper standard of conduct in the House. It must not be assumed that he should respond to appeals of the journalists’ profession to drop the motion. It was a motion which should be heard, but at that hour (midnight) he thought it best to break off and resume the debate to-, morrow. The House then adjourned. Allighan was escorted from the precincts .of the House by the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms and a nolice inspector. They left him at the gates, and Allighan walked out into the night alone.