WELLS ON AUSTRALIA

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVII, Issue 62, 8 February 1939, Page 1

WELLS ON AUSTRALIA

“HALF FASCIST” SCATHING FINAL SPEECH. SYDNEY, January 27. On the eve of his departure by airliner, Mr H. G. Wells scathingly attacked censorship in Australia, declaring that the country was already half Fascist. In a final interview with the Press, Mr Wells said that, in spite of some criticism he had made, he had enjoyed his stay very much. Mr Wells addressed the Fellowship of Australian Writers. “I hear dreadful stories about illiterates interfering with your radiotalks,” he said. “It is preposterous that halfeducated police should decide what is indecent, and intercept books and speakers at the ports in this country. Australia is a half-Fascist country and will continue to be until you have got rid of every sort of censorship. No country can be a democracy while it allows censorship of thought. It is utterly ridiculous to deny a man the freest access to every type of thought that exists in the world. A particularly ridiculous thing that we suffer from in Great Britain is censorship of the radio. Why shouldn’t every sort of opinion go out on the radio? Nobody is oomptUad to listen, It i» nonsense

to say that you must not have talks about Russia or economic struggles, or industrial freedom. It is an insult and a preposterous interference with the freedom of your citizens. The same thing applies to books. It is insulting, outrageous. “Australia’s relations with the world at large are rapidly changing. No longer are loans from London going to irrigate your political and social life. Your interest in the next few years is going to turn towards the north. I heard a remarkable thing in a friend’s company. He said that in Australia people talk about the Far East and when they talk about the Far East they mean China and Japan. There is no such thing as the Far East. In the north you have certain interests —the Mandated Territory, Papua, and the islands. You have to think seriously of what is going to happen there. These territories have upwards of 1,000,000 people. “You have got to make up your minds to forget your little intense pre-occupation with Australian things. You have got to do something about those very important people—the Dutch. They are as democratic as you. They are in line with you facing north. I have heard Australians say that whatever happens to us, America cannot afford to see Australia go under. Well, that is rather meaningless. I think you have to face up to the fact that you are part of the great line of Englishspeaking democracies, which is the only real power against the establishment of a military tyranny all over the world.” Mr Wells said that he had read with astonishment the reports of the speeches delivered in Sydney by the High Commissioner for Australia (Mr S. M. Bruce) on Great Britain’s part in the international crisis last September. “In my opinion,’’ he said, “the speeches were pitiful. The only thing Mr Bruce might have added was to have said how noble it was of us to have deserted Spain.”