TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20525, 15 June 1938, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Freedom of the Press Mr Anthony Eden, the former Foreign Secretary, speaking at (he annual dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund in London said : “In an experience which covers several years and in the course of negotiations, some of which have not been unimportant, I have never known the confidence given to a journalist betrayed. Like a good many othci things to-day, British journalism is on its trial. It has met a formidable rival in the organised mass propaganda of the modern world. We may dislike propaganda, but it would be foolish to under-rate its significance. Mass propaganda or the mass production of opinion can do more to separate one nation from another than any other factor. It can rouse ‘prejudice and passion, and, if pursued over a sufficiently long period of time, can close the minds of its victims to all other points of view. I cannot believe that such propaganda methods could easily succeed in this home of journalism. “I should be the last to advocate any restriction of the right to free and fair criticism, but it should surely be exercised with a full sense of responsibility. What Ido suggest is that in writing for our own people we should preserve a standard of intelligence, decency, and self-respect which is not only due to our own people, but which will represent them abroad in a better and, I believe, a truer light if we sometimes stop and think of the impression that cheap and irresponsible writing may produce elsewhere. lam convinced that a free Press is a tremendous asset rather than a liability as compared with a controlled Press. What matters most is that readers should know that they arc not being artificially prevented from getting at the truth.” “ The Greatest Tragedy 99

“Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Third Reich’s relations with the rest of the world,” comments the Glasgow Herald, “is that neither Herr Hitler nor any of his most influential colleagues knows any language but German. Thus hampered, they have very little understanding of the psychology of foreign peoples such as might suggest to them that the critical foreigner is not necessarily their enemy all the time. The truth is simple enough. The Third Reich has itself to blame for the bad Press it has received in this country. If it showed its strength at home in moderation it would find very little but commendation here; if it showed its good faith abroad in a clear statement of its foreign policy it would find a readiness to cooperate. But it does neither. Between them Herr Hitler, Field Marshal Goering, and Dr. Goebbels have done more to alienate opinion in this country than all the comment that has been made on them. What stands between Britain and Germany is not the hostility of the British Press but the mystical fanaticism of National Socialism.”