The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1912. JOURNALISM AND DEMOCRACY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12856, 30 October 1912, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1912. JOURNALISM AND DEMOCRACY.

«•» On Tuesday, September 10, the London I "Times" issued- its forty-thousandth 1 number, and with it a beautifully^ got- • up supplement devoted to a voluminous historical review of the art and business of printing, of the British newspaper press, and of the "Times" itself. Although the "Times" can no longer claim to be the supreme arbiter in public affairs, it is still a great journal, and this commemoration of its forty-thou-sandth issue has had the effect of directing widespread .attention to the value and importance of a full press. For instance, the "Sydney Morning Herald," turns it to account in an interesting discussion of tho relationship of journalism and the democracy. "Our Governments," it says, " wish to alter the methods of Australian journalism in direc- , tions which can have no other effect than that of minimising its influence. i hey wish to attach to its essential work of comment on public affairs conditions which will hamper their discussion, and tho enlightment of the people which has always been the issue of such discussion. They wish, in short, to diminish the influence of tho newspaper. It is a curious manifestation of tho spirit of democracy. Not thus has tho 'Times' attained a forty-thousandth issue, and not thus have tho unnumbered newspapers of tho world achieved their authority as custodians of the pubwe welfare. Not thus, either, has the democratic idea been nurtured into its present strength and stature. For what influence in the world has so fostered the democratic idea, so lifted the peoplo from ignoranco to knowledge, so buttressed tho ) claim of man to tho privileges of his manhood, as tho newspaper and its free and open discussion of affairs? The democracy would not bo within a generation's rango of its existing position had there not been for years past an unfettered press incessantly open to the discussion of its problems and their remedies. The shackled press is the signmanual of class privilege and oppression. As democracy needed a free press to build it into strength, so it needs a free i press to maintain it in tho power. For tho sako of some temporary advantage of diminiahed criticism, our Labour Governments are tampering with the finest, educativo influenco Labour ever had, without which, indeed, a Labour Government would never have been so much ag heard of. For it is not the stand taken by this or that journal on isolated public questions which has made tho newspaper an unrivalled benefaction to tbo world. It is tho constant clash of opinion, the incessant statement for and 1 against, tho exposition of principles, the projection of unseen moti/es into the light of day—it is the.se and a hundred similar things that have made tho newspaper tho plain man's library of knowledge, and have, given him a reasoned outlook and a wide horizon. Any by that way has come- democracy. Our Labour Governments are forgetting the larger thing by remembering only tho small ; thing of their personal pique, and their - individual resentment of criticism. It 1 i.s a return upon the age.s when license) and tyranny masqueraded an freedom. Tho 'Times' commemorative supplement in respect of the development of the British newspaper, is full of similar instances of Government interference with thy press. They all belong to a timo when oppression was convenient, and tho public knowledge, of facts inadvisable."' Tho politician who dislikes honest criticism, and who would like to see the press muzzled, is not peculiar to Australia. There, are some gentlemen of tho same type in this Dominion, who would, if they could, make us revert to seventeenth century methods, when suppressions of newspapers and indictments of their controllers were of common occurrence. It would bo a .sorry day for colonial democracy if theso .seli'-seckino; politicians wcro to bo permitted to have , their way. for it cannot bo denied that tho maintenance of a free press is essential to tho preservation of a free democracy.