USE OF CENSORSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 300, 20 December 1945, Page 5

USE OF CENSORSHIP

ONLY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF WAR VIEW OF U.S. OFFICIAL. Recd. 6 p.m. Washington, Dec. 18. Mr. Byron Price, former Censorship Director, in a final report to the Government, warned that editorial opinions and criticisms can never be brought under Government restraint, and ought not to be, so long as the present form of Government endures. Any censorial excursion into that realm would certainly destroy the respect of the censored and lead to the collapse of the entire structure. He added that censorship should come into being only as an instrument of war. Even then its work must be confined to depriving the enemy of information and collecting information which can be used against the enemy. Mr. Price added that no one who does not dislike censorship should ever be permitted to exercise censorship. American voluntary censorship demonstrated that it could be fully as effective as such compulsory systems as Britain and Canada, where many flagrant violations went unpunished because public sentiment would not support punishment. Mr. Price revealed that censorship of a single message enabled the War Purchasing Board to obtain 25,000,000 dollars worth of much-needed textiles, while letters intercepted in New York and Miami enabled a destroyer to seize a precious cargo of quinine badly needed to control malaria in the Pacific. A purchasing firm was attempting to smuggle the quinine for the black market in tablets for curing colds.