HỎNGKONG DAILY PRESS,"
THURSDAY, APRÍL 13, 1939,
clearly different aspects of the of all an agency of the Soviet re-Declaration of the Rights of Man but no less intelligibly. "A man may same great liberty. After all,gime in accomplishing its political is one of the most valuable of publish anything which twelve of practical purposes is the freedom and economic objectives: Its full the rights of man" became a rea-his countrymen of individual human beings to force is always focussed upon the lity, and has remained so except blameworthy;" and to come down "express themselves by the spoken achievement of specific practical when censorship has been imposed to more recent times Lord Shaw think is not or written word or by action results. In the editorial offices on in time of war or by the voluntary in 1914 in within the frame work of laws the top floor of the slate-grey five-act of the press in what they con Emperor wrote, "The freedom of
Arnold V. freely made and accepted, and go storey Izvestia Building. a
The King long as that is so inforced silence minent Russian newspaper man country. Such instances are na-or the freedom of the subject, pro-sider the true interests DX the the journalist is an ordinary' part La nothing but imprisonment of was explaining that to me the mind.
evening. "But how about truths less commendable and show con- ject in general" may go so also one turally rare, but they are none the and to whatever lengths the sub-
great organs of the press.
statüte, law. his privilège is no "RECENT INSTANCES
other and no higher. The ponsibilities which attach to his Let me recall three very recent printed matter may, and in the power in the, dissemination of instances. The long silence of
case of a conscientious journalist
The press, the right of public and facts", I prodded him? "Here clusively how responsible are the may the journalist, but apart from speech and of public meeting what you print is my chief source am 1, a stranger in your midst: which are essentially characteria-of information. Can I believe it?"
tics of democracy connote freedom because they are agencies for th free expression of thought. With out the right to express dissent
political sense.
12
res-
"If it is printed it's truth for us. We don't know and don't care about bourgeois notions of facts. there can be no freedom in the We Soviet Journalists are not just newspapers in the British Empire | do, make him more careful; but reporters. We don't boast of stand on the position that existed before the range of his assertions, his ing above the turmoil like record the abdication of Edward VIII was criticisms or his comments is as ing angels. On the contrary, we in spite of its claims to be free of any other subject.”
seized upon abroad as proof that, wide as and no wider than that are in the thick of the fight, pioneers in the job of changing our
the British press was, in fact, sub- country. If certain
Ject to Government control. information
That retards this work, we would be
argument is on the face of it crazy to print it. As far as we are Government, pressure existed it absurd. Had the possibility of concerned it is then neither news would obviously not have been res- nor truth. It becomes plain coun- ter-revolution.""
For a dictatorship restric tion of freedom of speech and . of public discussion, and cen- sorship of the press are essen- tial. With the spread of fascism and authoritarianism throughout the world the shadow of the censor grows langer every year.
Let me remind you, as thanks to the "Hongkong Telegraph," I am able to do, what Herr Hitler thinks of the freedom of the press:
Reich."
Dictatorship does not seem to require a profound sense of
humour
as one of its main qualifications, and the follow- ing instance of the mis-use of the censorship may amuse you..
PRO-GERMAN POLICY
tricted to British, newspapers.
1J
Our Journalists are honour- able; they are, like us, citbens, who have at heart the best interests of their country, but they are apt to be insatiable In their search for news' und · ́at times almost unscrupulous In the methods by which they obtain it, especially if they scent scoop.
"
Correspondents of the foreign press in London would have been equally hampered in the compiling and despatch of news, whereas in fact the Impending crisis filed columns in the newspapers
The great barons of the Fourth of Estate wield a power that few if practically every country outside any others can aspire to control the British Empire. Within the and it would be unnatural if in Empire à voluntary ban was im- a country like England, where
...
two quotations
every
from Humbert
You cannot hope to bribe or
twist,
Thank God, the British journa-
Just
"The state must not forget that all means have to serve an end.. It must not let itself be led astray by humbug about the so-called " 'freedom of the press' and be cafoled into dodging its duty and
In Jugoslavia the pro-German posed by newspapers in an attempt freedom is the breath of withholding from the nation the policy of the Stoyadinovitch Gov-to avoid precipitating by any un man's nostrils they and their fare which it needs and does it ernment aroused strong resent-due publicity a situation which it fournalists were not subject to good: With implacable decisiveness ment among the people and all was hoped might never arise criticism and good-natured satire. it must secure for itself this means but pro-Government articles were Their action' was subsequently cri: Let me lighten this lecture with for educating the people and place banned from the press to avoid the ticised by people who felt they had it in the service of state and na- risk of this popular indignation not been properly served by their Wolfe's Uncelestial City: tion. The activity of the so-called developing into an organised cam-press, but, all honour to them, it liberal press was grave-diggers' palgn. The Belgrade newspaper was a step unanimously taken with work for the German people and Politika had been publishing a view to serving the best interests
comic strip recounting the adven- of the country. tures of that great popular hero In Autumn 1935 the situation Mickey Mouse in a country ruled In the Mediterranean over by a boy king. When the
Was The work from which I have al-story reached the point at which
tense. The Admiralty in the ready cited puts the Soviet Russian the wicked uncle of the king was
national Interests requested the point of view thus:
press not to publish the move- plotting to depose him the strip ments of His Majesty's ships disappeared" from the in what in affect was a naval mobilisation. Newspapers daily received news of a great naval concentration in the Eastern Mediterranean; ships were ar- riving there from Home sta- tions, from the West Indies. from China, from India and from Australasia. There was almost a complete silence in the press.
mento.
SOVIET VIEW
But, seeing what the man will
do.
Unbribed, there's no occasion to.
So much for the journalist in.. his reporter stage: Now see what he writes of the magnates of many thundering presses ;----
And then consider, John, if
we determine To take this line at the end of
our careers
We might assume hereditary
ermine
And hide our heads among a
crowd of peers
Saying:
The House of Lords is waiting
for
The Newspaper Proprietor Boap! Attention! Listen! Beer! Glory to the new maće peer. Hark, The Herald's College sings, "As it fakes his quarterings.
TRUE IDEALS.
"The Soviet Press is officially abruptly owned and more rigidly controlled paper. than any of the other state pro- The authorities, took the view perties. It is frankly and proudly that the strip was anti-govern- a kept press-kept by the governmental propoganda directed against ment, the Communist party, the the regent Prince Paul, who de- trade unions, which are but differ- putized for his nephew King Peter. ent names for the same cen-Reuter's correspondent in Belgrade tralised power. The very memory reported the story, with the result of an independent newspaper in that he was ordered to leave the serious disagreement with the gov-country within three days. ernment has faded out.
So Every Mickey Mouse for the first time sentence in every paper has been fell under the censor's ban, and the the official attitude and published One newspaper disagreed with censored. Not merely what it ac-incredible gravity tually says but the infections and officialdom-became the laughing without sensational head lines or of Jugoslaythree fleet movements, though over-tones of its dreaded volce are stock of Europe. political weather-vanes -to thel
comment: There was no prosecu- Initiate. Its very allences, are por acent effort of the British censor they had committed no offence and It reminds one of the magnition for the simple reason that tentous. An editorial is the equi- during the war who deleted from punishment valent of an oficial pronuncis- Kipling's Recessional the line "The illegal. The same thing happened, would have been Captains and the Kings depart" and this time without exception, "The faint hint of a new attitude on the grounds that it might give in connection with Fleet move- towards some sector of the popu-information about military movements in the very critical days in lation in a random article mayments to the enemy. ..
September, 1938, foreshadow. destiny for millions. Under British rule, we are, save The kind of news published, the in time of war, zid of auch restric- and much prized freedom of the tated, especially from a Jew? The
In what then does this vaunted would such a biting satire be tole stress placed on an occurrence, the tions and absurdities. But it was spoken and the written word con- answer is that in England we now fallure to mention certain events at not always so, for, whenever any sist? It is, I feel, almost an anti-that the British Press is for Home or abroad-all have an im-large proportion of a nation is dis climax to pronounce the law on ruptible. We have cause to be portance they do not possess where affected towards its Government, a the subject so I shall leave It to proud of our premi which canals- the press is free. The whole frce press becomes source of much greater men than I. The tently preaches and promotes the ethical baggage of Journalism in danger. The censorship of the Liberty of the Press" said Lord te ideals of democracy, which is -democratic countries has been press continued in England til Mansfield consists in printing great enough to withstand and thrown overboard by the Bolshe1885, and then its abolition was without any previous licence, sub-ignore those temporary shocks and- viks. No claim is made for un-rather accidental than deliberate, Ject to the consequences of lawments from their high estate; and blassed or objective reporting. No as Macaulay caustically points dut
cataclysms which bring govezo- pretence is made of newspaper in the 19th chapter of his History of England is a law of liberty and the Fourth Estate of the Realm, in Lord Ellenborough said. "The law which, well deserves the title of Independence and no reference is of England. ever made to the freedom or
consistent with this liberty, Wo dignity of the Fourth Estate. All sorship which still remain are the primatur: there is no such pre- The only vestiges of such cen-have not what is called an im-
a country where liberty will always this baggage, in fact, the Com-Lord Chamberlain's control over liminary licence necessary; but if a
be supreme. munists regard as a piece of stage plays, and the censorship of man publish a paper he is exposed Fearless service of the public in- The motto of the press must be: bourgeois hypocricy.
film pictures. So that "free com- to the penal consequences, as he is terest, The press is not primarily amunication of conveyor of news at all. It is first opinions" which according to the Lord Kenyon puts it more binntly wrote;
thoughts and in every other act, if it be illegal" Kipling in his poem The Press
In what other country in Europe
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