Pestilential Books

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 20, 20 May 1909, Page 9

Pestilential Books

Last week a deputation waited upon the Premier in Christchurch to press upon the Government the urgent need of dealing with the spread of filthy and demoralising literature. The Catholic and the Anglican bishops spoke strongly and pointedly upon this growing evil. And the head master of the East Christchurch School (Mr. S. C. Owen) declared that ' the elder childrcu had no difficulty in obtaining the class of books referred to, and they had. to institute a censorship and had to do a great deal of confiscation.' Evidently there are some booksellers "in Christchurch, as in other cities of this Dominion, that would be ' nane the waur o' a hangin'.' Milton, in his Areopagitica, stood for freedom of the press — but not for such deadly license as that which nowadays pours out streams of tainted and pestilent printed stuff to degrade and demoralise the youth of our time. ' I deny not,' says he, ' but it is of the greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how bookes demean themselves, as well as men; and therefore to confine, imprison, and do sharp justice on them as malefactors; for bookes are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie. of life in them to be active as the soule was whose progeny they are.' Blackstone, in his Commentaries, gives the same view in slightly different terms. 'To punish,' says he, ' as the law does at present, any dangerous or offensive writings, which, when published, shall, on a

fair and impartial trial, be adjudged of a pernicious tendency, is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order, of government and religion, the only solid foundations of civil liberty.' Despite their easy acquiescence in a peculiarly strict censorship of plays, English non-Catholics have not, as a rule, taken kindly to the application of a censorship or Index as a method of imposing some measure of restraint upon the publication and distribution of the literature of the sty. In the circumstances, it is interesting to note the frequency with which, in such protests as that o£ Christchurch, there now arises a demand for a censorship or* Index or (as a non-Catholic member of last week's deputation termed it) ' a list of proscribed literature.' Our nonCatholic friends seem to be gradually, though under protest, sidling along to an acceptance of the principle of the Roman Index — like the lady in Byron's poem — ' A little still they strove, and much repented, And, whispering they would ne'er consent, consented.'