POLITICIANS AND THE PRESS

New Zealand Tablet, 11 July 1918, Page 33

POLITICIANS AND THE PRESS

(By P. J. O’ Regan, in the Maorila-nd Worker.)

Since the packing of the Legislative Council there have been other happenings tending to confirm the view that the press is being mobilised to support the present political combination, and that the said combination is something more than a Windy War Government —in other words, that it will continue after the war. I allude, of course, to the “invitation” emanating from the British Government to a contingent of press representatives to visit the western war front. Frankly, I am of opinion that the invitation was inspired from this end, but whether that be the fact or not, the object is quite clear—to stifle independent opinion in this country. Each press representative will return with the assurance of the man who knows what he has been talking about, because he has been there. Of course, his eating salt with the Milners and Northclifles will not influence his opinion in the least ! He will be just as candid a friend of the National Government as before, and the tear of being “carpeted” by his directors will not deter the editor from doing his duty to the public, even though he has been granted a holiday trip to Europe ! But the most poignant illustration of the policy of capturing the press is afforded by the fate of the Li/ttelton Time*. Under the editorial control of Mr. S. Saunders that paper became the most influential journal in New Zealand. Its outstanding feature was the correspondence columns, wherein every shade of opinion was permitted facilities for forcible and decorous expression. By this means the paper became a powerful medium for the stimulation of and development of public opinion, and there is no doubt that the strong current of independent opinion in the Cathedral City to-day, took its rise originally from the Lj/tteJion, Times. But discussion is the very thing “our triend the enemy” dreads", and after fruitless attempts to induce the editor to “go slow,” he was removed, since which time the paper has silently fallen into line, and so it has come to pass that the once stalwart vindicator of Liberal principles joins with the pack in calumniating men like Messrs. Webb and Holland. O tempora, O mores ! Mr. Holland was subjected to a cross fire of vituperation because he dared to declare in the name of Labor for a negotiated peace. The hired hacks who abused the member for Grey might do worse than study the speech delivered a few weeks ago at Glasgow by General Smuts, the only military member, by the way, of the Lloyd George War Cabinet. “We used to talk a lot of nonsense,” said General Smuts, “about defeating the Boche, but Brother Boche has come and knocked this kind of damnable nonsense out of ns.” Every intelligent observer knows that peace is coming by negotiation. It is a scandalous fact that a Parliamentary candidate who voiced a view which General Smuts makes imperative should be made the object of studied slander and abuse by facile but addle-pated scribblers.