The Waikato Times FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1942 PUBLIC BIGHT TO CRITICISE

Waikato Times, Volume 130, Issue 21653, 13 February 1942, Page 2

The Waikato Times FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1942 PUBLIC BIGHT TO CRITICISE

Does criticism in the public press of governments and war efforts serve any useful purpose in exposing and remedying weaknesses and in counteracting complacency and slackness ? Most people would answer in the affirmative. They would ask what the fate of a nation would be if a government pursued its course entirely free from the corrective of public criticism; if faults in administration remained concealed and if a government felt it could proceed without regard for public opinion. There is at least one man in New Zealand who holds a contrary view, who is satisfied that the New Zealand Government’s war policy is “100 per cent” perfect and that all criticism should be stifled. He is Mr Arthur Cook, general secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, who in the official organ of the Labour Party has published this opinion throughout the Dominion. “ When is the Government going to deal with the daily newspapers ? ” Mr Cook asks. “When is the Government going to place controllers and editors of hostile newspapers in the place where they belong ? When is the Government going to tell these people that their attacks, veiled or otherwise, must cease or else the newspaper they control or edit must go out of existence ? ” This is only an extract from a long article, the general theme of which is to condemn newspaper criticism of the Government’s policy. At about the same time a Sydney newspaper published a summary of the Australian Labour Government’s opinions on the freedom of speech and the press. There was never a more striking contrast. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, at Perth said: “ Don’t forego your right of criticism —a right which newspapers enjoy only in a democracy.” Mr Beasley, another Australian Labour leader, said: “We must most carefully and determinedly guard against any attempts to stifle fair, just and ligitimate criticism in connection ,with the war effort. History will one day truthfully record the value of exposure of the weaknesses of our war effort.” Dr. Evatt, Attorney-General and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Labour Cabinet, said: “ The use of censorship to suppress criticism of the Government has increased rapidly in the last three or four months. Both censorship and newsprint rationing should be freed from political manipulation. The itch to employ a blanket censorship in order to prevent disclosure of administrative blunders and to stifle criticism is becoming aggravated.” In New Zealand the Prime Minister in particular has expressed similar opinions. He has frequently affirmed the public’s right to criticise what it believes to be weaknesses in the administration. There is a matter upon which the people owe the duty to themselves to form an opinion. Firstly there is always a distinction between constructive and destructive criticism. Let the mind be freed from the influence of the opinions of Mr Curtin, Mr Beasley, Dr. Evatt and Mr Cook, and of all political bias, and the simple question remains: Would it be in the national interest if all fair criticism of the government of the day or of the war effort were suppressed ? Mr Cook stands perilously near alone in affirming that the critics should be silenced and that any war effort, no matter how commendable, is “ 100 per cent ” perfect. It could have been hoped that the Nazi control of the press of Europe and of all other means of public expression would have convinced every free man of the tragedy of the course which Mr Cook proposes.