Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 9 November 1916, Page 34

Notes

A Director’s Protest The following letter from Sir George Clifford, a member of the Board of Directors of the Christchurch Press, appeared in that paper on the day on which " the Bishop and the Press ’ correspondence was somewhat significantly declared closed: —* ‘ Sir, —I am somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I am a director of the Christchurch Press Company, and sincerely convinced of the great value of that organ in its advocacy of moderate views. I also happen to be a Catholic, and as one of that body naturally resent the tone in which some recent . events have been treated. Unfortunately, I was absent from town when the trouble arose, and thus prevented from expressing my opinion at the time. lam unable to agree with the views either of Bishop Brodie or of the editor of the Press, but I have consistently held that in such a community as ours care should be taken to avoid needless offence to any religious body. In fact, some years ago I strongly protested against articles holding up to ridicule—good-humored though it' was—the proceedings of the ministers of another creed. There was, I consider, no occasion for the article commenting on the proposal to raise funds for the distressed poor of Dublin, and both the proposal and the article might well have been left silently to their fate. ‘ What I now feel bound to protest against is the discourteous tone adopted towards the local head of the Catholic Church, so calculated to offend members of that body who, like myself, felt little interest in the controversy. Headlines such as ‘‘Bishop Brodie’s Outburst and the sword-thrusts of anonymous correspondents could very wisely have been omitted from your columns. I wish to make sure that the Press should avoid any approach to disturbance on our part of the tranquil harmony in which members of all denominations usually pursue their various good works. I am also confident that the good influence of the general policy of the Press is more important than the ephemeral trouble of the moment, and should not be imperilled by such controversies as the present.— e t c -> ‘ Geimige Clifford. ’ Press Comment on the ‘Press’ The Christchurch Sun the leading evening paper in Christchurch—has some scathing comment on the humbug indulged in by the Press on the empty catchcry of the ‘ freedom of the press.’ Says our contemporary in part: ‘. . . The public is now hearing little or nothing about the original subject in dispute, but is being treated to a lot of cant about the privileges of newspapers. here was a time, no doubt, when, the freedom of the press,” or, in other' words, the right of public discussion within reasonable bounds, was a cause to champion, and a matter of public importance. As a matter of fact and law a newspaper has no more freedom to comment on public affairs, to criticise individuals, and publish statements about them than anyone else ; no special privileges or rights are enjoyed, nor have ever been enjoyed, by newspapers in this matter over the rest of the community. And in these days when newspapers are in the main, commercial concerns, owned by public companies, and so dominated by commercial instincts that they form themselves into trusts for the purpose of creating and maintaining valuable monopolies, any suggestion that the “freedom of the press is a subject to cause the public the slightest concern is absurd and ridiculous to the last degree. Many years ago when political power was concentrated in the hands of small groups of men, answerable only to the King, and in latex* times to very restricted constituencies, the citizen who ventured to criticise public affairs in print needed all the moral and material support he could gain from those who sympathised with the views he expressed. The journalist of a century ago was invariably poor, and his publication if not actually

edited, was frequently inspired from behind, the bars of a debtor’s prison. But .in spite of such difficulties the old time editor made himself a force to be reckoned with in the land, and by stirring up public opinion helped to hasten the changes commonly regarded as political and social progress. One hundred and twenty-five years ago, under Pitt, it was a crime to convene a public meeting without the approval of those in authority, but the right of public discussion, either in the press or on public platform, has long since been established, and times have so changed that a Northcliffe, so* far from being a voice in the wilderness of a prison yard, considers himself competent to run the British Government and conduct a world-war. The “freedom of the press” is not likely to be jeopardised by the decision of a handful of Catholics to stop subscribing to a paper , that annoys them. Every newspaper is quite familiar with the angry subscriber who “stops the paper” because he disagrees with its views on the liquor question, Bible in schools, or any other controversial topic, but invariably the publishing department gets an order a few days later to resume delivery, for the simple reason the subscriber finds,he cannot really afford to be without the paper. But it is, to say the least of it, highly diverting, to see the journalistic product of a water-tight combination like the local newspaper trust rallying its readers to the support of a cry that lost its significance 50 years ago.’