In speaking to the Bill yesterday I endeavoured to show that it was introduced because the existing law had failed to deal with the evil of immoral literature. The Minister for Justice, in speaking to the Bill. stated a proposition with which I was in through agreement. He said: "The aim of the Bill is not an unwarrantable infringement of the liberty of the subject." There is a certain section of the Press which has been industriously engaged, for some considerable time, in endeavouring to prove that this Bill was an infringement of ordinary liberty, in the ordinary accepted sense of the term.
I heard John Stuart Mill quoted on a couple of occasions during the debate yesterday, and if there is one authority upon what constitutes the liberty of the subject I think that authority is John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill laid down two fundamentals for liberty. He said first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions so far as these actions concerned the interest of no person but himself. The second fundamental that Mill laid down was that, so far as such actions are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and subject to either legal or social punishments, if society is of opinion that such punishment is requisite for its protection. That sums up in a word the very proposition that the Minister for Justice put before this House. These are two principles upon which the Bill rests, and they are principles which no fair-minded man could object to. The liberty of the Press has been abused, not by our own national Press, but by a licentious and alien Press, which has been engaged in rivalry amongst a certain section of it. A certain section of that Press has obtained huge circulation by means of the propagation of a vile type of publications which every Deputy in this House objects to. We are all aware that huge sums for advertising purposes are netted by advertisements of cantraceptives, by the sale of contraceptives, and by a propaganda which deals with birth control.
This Bill is effectively designed to put a check to the operations of that foreign Press that circulates amongst us. The Bill is not designed to curtail the liberty of the Press. The Bill is designed to curtail the licentiousness of the Press. In this House yesterday there appeared to be no difference of opinion, as far as this Bill is concerned, in dealing with what a Deputy very properly termed fugitive literature. But in criticising this Bill a very eminent Senator said that the object of the Bill was to eliminate foreign competition in our Irish markets. Will any Deputy either in this House or any member of the Seanad contend that the Irish markets exist for the benefit of and for the profit of the alien Press that is in circulation amongst us? Will and Deputy contend that the English motor markets exist for the benefit of the productions of Cork rather than for the benefit of the productions of Coventry? If the English Press cannot carry on with the national Press fair and legitimate competition on sane and healthy lines, the duty of this State is to see that such competition must be put an end to. I, for one, have no sympathy whatever with that particular point of view which has been put forward.
May I turn for one moment to the second aspect of the Bill which some of the Deputies representing the universities, and some, perhaps, of the best educated men in this House endeavoured to have removed from the Bill? I refer to the question of the publication of books. Deputy Law suggested it would be better to leave books alone. He stated that he doubted if it was worth while. Other speakers seemed to me to follow similar lines and appeared anxious to eliminate this section of the Bill which deals with the publication and restriction of books. I do suggest to the Minister for Justice that he should stand firm over this section of the Bill. I do suggest that this section is as vital and just as important as the sections dealing with what has been termed the fugitive Press. Is it suggested in this House that the standards of literature are of such high excellence that we can with safety give them free circulation amongst us, or will any Deputy say that their circulation requires no check and no prohibition? I think anybody who would give just a moment's consideration to that aspect will admit straight away that there can be no justification for such a statement.
There has been an extraordinary fall in the moral standard in recent English literature. Speaking in this House, I hope it is not rank heresy to say that. I should like to quote an eminent authority dealing with that matter in the "Evening Standard." That authority is Dean Inge. He dealt with what he considers to be the standard of morality of literature in England to-day. Dean Inge said:—
"A corrupt following of Continental novels, French and Russian, has introduced both vulgarity and indecency into most English fiction. They have found their way in under the the specious name of realism and problem psychology. We are threatened with an outbreak of licentiousness like that which followed the Civil War in the 17th century and the Napoleonic Wars of 100 years ago."
I think that the Minister for Justice dealt in a very able and lucid manner with this aspect of the question. The Minister in dealing with the question of books said: "A book can only be fairly condemned when its tenor is bad and when it is systematically indecent. It must not be condemned for one or two passages." And he instanced such a work as Thackeray's "Vanity Fair."
Another eminent member of the House instanced certain works which deal with venereal disease and prostitution. Those subjects can be dealt with in a very different way than that in which the present-day writers are dealing with them. Anybody who has read the immortal works of Dickens knows that he has dealt with the very seamy side of life, and that his pen-pictures of those aspects of life stand as a moral warning to generations upon generations. Anybody who has read these portraits of life knows the moral drawn is only for the good of the people. Is it not a very well-known fact that most of the large sellers as far as books are concerned to-day deal absolutely with problems of sex, thinly veiled indecency from cover to cover? Is there not a very large sale for the type of book that is absolutely subversive of religion. This has led, in the words of the Bishop of Durham, "to the disintegration of the home, and a nation of churchless and creedless Christianity." That is literature as it stands to-day.
Deputy Law gave us some examples of books which were upon the border line, but Deputy Law did not deal with the examples which really matter, the examples which really count. I ask the House, does it intend to tolerate the admission of such books as "Woman and the New Race," by Margaret Sanger; "The Well of Loneliness," by Radclyffe Hall; "Lady Chatterley's Lover," by D.H. Laurence, and "Sapho," by Flaubert. There are other books such as Fielding's "Tom Jones," which I think this country could be better without. There is another very prolific writer, Doctor Marie Stopes, who deals with sex problems, with birth control and with things which no father would permit his child to come in contact with. I have here in my hand a cutting from the "Sunday Chronicle" dealing with the banning of the novel of a famous writer. It says: "A sensation has been caused in the literary world by the dramatic action which has been taken by the British Customs authorities against the astounding book, ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover,' by D.H. Laurence." It has been printed for subscribers only, and it is reeking with obscenity. We have the picture of a paralysed husband drawn in the book.