BRITISH NEWSPAPERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27572, 14 December 1950, Page 7

BRITISH NEWSPAPERS

Control By Government Predicted

NZPA—Copyright LONDON, Dec. 12. Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, K.C., addressing journalists in London today, said newspapers would be Government controlled in a Socialist State. “There has never been in history so far as I know any Socialist State which has allowed the foundation of newspapers hostile to the executive,” he said. Sir David said: “ I cannot see how Britain would be any exception, because if all means of production, distribution, and exchange are to be in the hands of the State, then surely such a fully Socialist State could not tolerate the newspaper industry left in what Mr Aneurin Bevan calls ‘ the miasma of private enterprise.’ ” Sir David added that newspapers could not indefinitely escape passing into State control, although they might be one of the last industries to do so if a Socialist State came into being. Referring to the export of newsprint to Australia and New Zealand, he said: “ One does begin to wonder what is the reasoning and the basis of a policy that considers it necessary to maintain 24-page papers in Australia, and to make it doubtful if we are to have more than four pages here.”

Sir David said his conclusions were either that the British Government considered the newspapers of little importance, or that it was. deliberately trying to cut down their size and value to the public. ll He thought the Government was more stupid than malevolent. ..“I believe it is a case of the Government undervaluing the importance of an ■ informed public opinion, and showing gross inefficiency in the working out of its plans,” he said.