CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1935, Page 7

CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

PUBLIC TASTE USUALLY SOUND. '' - - ENGLISH PUBLISHER’S VIEWS. - The censorship of books was a very complicated question, said Mr. Jonathan Cape, a prominent London publisher, who is visiting Taranaki, to a Daily News representative last night. In Great Britain, he said, there were , laws that made the publication of indecency a crime. If a book was suspected by the authorities a copy was purchased by them and if thought necessary the bookseller and the publisher charged before a magistrate with an offence. An appeal could.be made to a higher court, but the decision of the courts was final. Publishers did not complain of the . law so long as it was administered with impartislity and; reasonableness. Occasionally the condemnation of a book caused a" stir, but the law must be obeyed. Of course, said Mr.- Cape, there had been a considerable change in public opinion in regard to what did or . did not comprise good taste and real artistry in a book. To be of benefit and interest a book must be in closest relationship to real life. If it were not, books would slip back to the artificiality which had led to the old saying that a man “talks like a book.” Public opinion, and particularly .young public opinion, would give no support to such artificiality. The younger generation contained, in fact, the severest censors of what is and what is not a book worth reading. Some writers by unhappy methods of expression made verities of life appear crude and repulsive. Others, while holding just as strongly to reality, did not raise prejudices among older or younger readers. Britons loved liberty, continued Mr. Cape. They claimed liberty of judgment in what they should read as much as in what they should wear, and on the whole could be trusted to exercise sound judgment. There were some readers who could see nastiness in what to another was but a description of people and circumstances necessary to the development of a story. Publishers tried to put themselves in the position of the ordinary" decent. citizen when considering writings submitted to them. At times their attitude might make them appear 1 illogical, but in the main the decisions were sound. The public had the remedy and could use it. If there were no buyers of. unpleasant and unnecessary books there would be few published. In some parts of the Empire there was, however, censorship of another kind, said Mr. Cape. It was censorship intended to prevent political propaganda, and in some cases there was a commercial bias in the demand for stricter surveillance of imported books. That, of course, was viewed quite differently by publishers in Great Britain.