FREEDOM OF PRESS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19338, 31 May 1937, Page 13

FREEDOM OF PRESS

INJUDICIOUS ATTACKS .MR. FRASER VOICES REBUKE A great, deal had been made aboul the Labour Government's intention to curtail the freedom of the press of New Zealand by a censorship, said the acting-Prime Minister, tin- Hon. I'. Fraser, in Hawera, stales the Tarnnaki Herald. This was f|ititb incorrect, as the Government had never considered such a step. The opinion that such a step might he taken, said Mr. Fraser, undoubtedly had spread from two injudicious attacks on the press of Hie Dominion--one over tho air by Mr. ('. O. Scrimgcour, and tho other'in the Labour Party's weekly, the. .Standard.

The .Minister said he did not think the broadcast attack should have been made, and he. had made it his business to inquire into the. article in the Standard. Tins, he stressed, was the opinion of one man. and a, man nut particularly in the Labour movement at that. It, was nut, the considered opinion of either the Government or the Labour Party.

Mr. Fraser said thai, at the next election the whole of the press of New Zealand would he allied against, the La hour Government. If was all very well to claim that, the press gave the Government members plenty of space. It did. particularly if in an unguarded moment a member of the Government made a remark that could be misconstrued. II then appeared in headlines in every daily newspaper in Hie country.