FILM CENSORSHIP

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1931, Page 13

FILM CENSORSHIP

PROTECTION FOR CHILDREN.

MAGISTRATE’S DECISION.

Mr. 1 Stuart Deacon, the Liverpool Stipendiary Magistrate, gave his considered judgment in the case against the Burlington Cinema Company, Ltd, of Liverpool, for an alleged contravention of the Cinematograph Act, 1909, by showing a film called “Red Pearls” to persons under the age of sixteen without having first obtained the permission of the Liverpool Justices. There was also a summons against Arthur Joseph Willett, the licensee of the cinema, for aiding and abetting. After giving judgment, in which he upheld the action of the Licensing Justices, the magistrate fined the Burlington Cinema Company, Ltd., £lO and the licensee £2. Notice of appeal was given. At the previous hearing it was stated that the British Board of Film Censors had considered that this film was only fit for adults and had not passed it for universal exhibition.

Last October the Liverpool Licensing Justices made it a condition of license that A films (those passed by the censors as suitable for adults only) could not be exhibited to persons under sixteen. Previously children might be admitted to the exhibition of such films if accompanied by a parent or guardian. This permission arose from a suggestion to all licensing justices from the Home Office. The question was raised whether the Liverpool justice.. had acted reasonably in saying that if a film was not fit for universal exhibition it was not fit for exhibition to a child even if the child was accompanied by a parent or guardian. The magistrate, in his judgment, said that he had considered the question in relation to the fact that the prohibition might be regarded as interfering with the natural rights of the parent or guardian to determine what entertainment the child should have; and whether prohibition in such an unlimited form imposed a serious restriction upon the licensee with no good object. On those points he had found a valuable guide in recent legislation in regard “to children. Regarding the sale of alcohol and of cigarettes to children, Parliament had taken upon itself the role of a national parent and said, “You shall not do this.” Cicero had said, ‘‘The very foundation of the whole commonwealth is the proper bringing up of the child. It was evident that the State, in our own time had made the principle of this axiom its own. Following this example, h therefore found that there was nothinherently unreasonable in the Liverpool justices saying that A films should not be shown to children under sixteen except with their express consent. Further, there was nothing inherently unreasonable in the determination of the justices, based upon their collective knowledge and experience, that it was better to leave the question of the possible exhibition to children under sixteen of all such films entirely to the discretion of the justices rather than to the individual judgment of the parent or guardian.