Books Banned.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20539, 14 February 1935, Page 8

Books Banned.

What Australia May Not Look At.

(Special to the ** Star") MELBOURNE. February 7. EXAMINATION OF LISTS compiled from various sources does not bear out the statement of the Australian Minister of Customs (Mr White) that when books are banned by his department, it is on nearly every occasion, for “ sheer indecency.” Investigations to-day revealed that, although on the banned lists are a number of books which appear to be purely pornographic. Works w'hich have long been the delight of classical students rub shoulders there with some of the most brilliant of modern novels and political text books of world authority. Most astonishing of all, perhaps, is to find on the list, along with a varied collection of books of dubious merit. “ The Golden Asse of Lucius Apuleius ” and the “ Daphnis and Chloe ” of Longus. both works which have given delight to generations of readers and both in translations which are counted to have enriched the English language. Along with Defoe’s “ Moll Flanders ” is Hermann Broch’s ponderous psychological novel, “ The Sleepwalkers, - ’ which only the most resolute admirer of the German technique could plough through—a huge tome about as erotic as Joyce’s “ Dubliners ” on the same list. Along with text books by Lenin and Stalin tag the memoirs of Oscar Browning—of Eton and Cambridge. As the department is reported once to have held up a book on Greenland exploration because it was written by a man named Lindsay, possibly Browning is there because his Christian name is Oscar The list of political books and phamph lets—a number in foreign languages—is now well on its way to swamping the literary section. Soon the index, it seems, will be one of the biggest in the world.