I understand that four hours have been allotted to item No. 5 on the Order Paper. I assume that Standing Order 80A, that is, the time limit on Private Members' motions, will be suspended in respect of this motion, and that there is no objection to that.
Committee on Finance. - Use of the Censorship—Motion.
I move:—
That Standing Order 80A (Time limit to debate on Private Members' motions) be suspended in respect of the motion on the Order Paper standing in the names of Deputies Dillon and McGilligan.
Question put and agreed to.
I move:—
That the Dáil is of opinion that the censorship is being used at present unduly to restrict legitimate free speech and prevent the natural expression of public opinion in this country and that effective measures should be taken forthwith to ensure an administration of censorship powers which will command the confidence of our people.
A man who, I think, is perhaps one of the greatest statesmen in the world to-day and who looks at the world through no materialistic eye, but sees in the society of men an organisation ordained under the law of God, laid down that one of the objectives for which he thought a man's life might well be given was the right to think, speak and act freely within the law, and to have free access to the thoughts of others. I adopt those words. I regard that as one of the most sacred rights that generations of our people fought to win from foreign oppressors who denied it to us for seven centuries.
I well remember the depth of feeling in this House on the day when we consented to the unprecedented powers that this Government asked for on the representation that they must have them effectively to defend this State. We gave them to them because we felt they were best able to judge what powers they must have and that we, in our capacity as the Opposition, were bound, in that hour of emergency, to accept their word. But we surrendered into their hands that sacred right to hold as trustees for us and for other freemen in this State. A trustee is a person into whose care one confides one's treasure in the confidence that he will be more careful of one's interest in these valuables than one would be oneself and that he will permit no diminution of their value that can possibly be avoided. A pawnbroker takes your valuables on pledge, taking no more than ordinary care of them, feeling that the longer he holds them the more his absolute right to them grows, and knowing that, ultimately, you may lose your title to your treasure and he will be free to dispose of it at his own discretion and his own sweet will. We gave these rights in trust to hold for our people and my indictment of the Government is that they took them as pawnbrokers and that, with the passage of weeks and months, they seem to imagine that the longer they hold these rights for the people the less claim the people have to them and the more absolute becomes the discretion of the Executive of this State to withhold a greater and greater portion of freedom, whereas my interpretation of the trust was that, from day to day and hour to hour, the Government would be more vigilant than we to see that the upper limit of liberty was allowed to function and that, knowing themselves to have the power to extinguish it, they would lean back and take risks in order perennially to reassure our people that the larger liberties were safe and would come back intact and in order continually to remind our people that the restricted liberties to which we consented were an imperfection in the State which democrats and men who love liberty would never tolerate but for the purpose of averting the greater evil.
Before I go into the specific merits of the case I want to make, there are one or two things I desire to make quite clear. I am not concerned to-day to argue that one side of the case or the other should be given the better hearing. Most Deputies in the House know where I stand on the great issues that confront this country and I would have them know it. But that is not in issue now. The matter we are concerned with this evening is the right of every man to think, speak and act freely within the law, and have free access to the thoughts of others. The second thing I want to make clear is that, in the criticism I have got to make of the Executive, I have no desire to suggest that they are pro-German or pro-British or pro anything else. I do not believe that the Executive of this State is pro-German.
The case I am making to the Ministers responsible for the administration of these powers is—and I have got to be plain and blunt in making it—that the permanent official responsible for that administration is not a fit person to occupy that position and that the Minister who has answered to this House for the exercise of these powers has allowed himself to drift into a position in which he regards himself as Czar, a master of the people, instead of their servant and the protector of their treasure. We are a Catholic and a Christian people. Ninety-nine per cent. of our people are Christian and the Leader of Christianity in the world to-day and the Head of the Catholic Church is His Holiness the Pope. Let me here interpolate that I want to make no cheap suggestion that any member of the Executive has a lesser veneration for the Holy Father or the Vatican than I. No such suggestion is implied, nor could it for a moment be sustained. But, in my submission to this House, when great events are moving in the world and the Vatican breaks silence to comment upon them, it is the right of our people to hear that voice. I say that a censorship which felt itself entitled to withhold from our people messages addressed by the Vatican to the faithful of the whole world showed itself to have lost all sense of proportion and entirely to have misinterpreted the scope of the discretion conferred upon it by an Act of this House.
About six weeks ago, the Osservatore Romano published an article in which it said that the Vatican could no longer remain silent, that it was satisfied that tendentious rumour was being spread about and so assiduously and skilfully spread that it might reasonably be expected to deceive persons of good will, and that it desired to say categorically that these rumours were false and untrue. All that was published in Éire.
But the Osservatore Romano, in the article, went on to say that it was necessary to describe what these rumours were. It set out under five heads the rumours suggesting, to put it quite bluntly, that the Pope was behind Hitler and Mussolini and expected all Catholics to be the same. The five rumours were different variants of that theme. It said: “Those five rumours are false, and we want anybody who attaches importance to what we say to know that these five specific rumours are false.” These five specific rumours were struck out by the censor in this country, and our people were denied the right to hear the Vatican's voice in contradiction of specious propaganda designed to confuse the Catholic mind on vital moral issues that confront the world. We were told that the reason these five rumours were struck out and publication prohibited in this country was that the rumours which the Vatican desired to countervail had never been printed here.
Who ever printed a rumour? What man has made more passionate protests in this House than our Taoiseach about the deadly injury done to him by rumour? What man has complained more bitterly that nowhere could he find the thing in print so that he could produce it and contradict it, but that he could hear it carried on the breeze? I remember his standing there describing how all his life, again and again, he had felt himself aggrieved by rumours. I remember his saying here that the only way he could meet them was to set these rumours out, put them in print, and then contradict them, if their authors were afraid to do as much, and meet them in a concrete form.
But, when the Vatican newspaper, perhaps the most conservative organ in Europe, says: "This scandal of rumour has reached such magnitude that we must print these foul rumours and then contradict them; we must first give concrete publicity to these rumours, something their authors are afraid to do, and then give a concrete contradiction," we give the contradiction, but disassociate that contradiction in the minds of our own people from the rumours which it was designed to quell.
I can imagine an error of judgment. Who will deny that the equitable administration of the censorship is a most difficult task? Who in this House would willingly accept the burden? It is a difficult task. What trustee ever accepted responsibility for such a trust who did not know he was shouldering an intolerable burden? I would forgive gladly and readily an error of judgment. But this was no error of judgment, because, finding that the written word had not caught up with the whisper, the Vatican turned to its second weapon, and on the Vatican radio ten days ago proclaimed to the world that these rumours were still abroad and that it would now, not only contradict them, but would add a painting of the true picture of the internal state of the country which the Vatican was supposed to want us all to love and serve.
The announcer declared that the religious situation in Germany is highly unsatisfactory and condemned the Nazi attitude to the Church. The threat of a State religion, he said, hangs over all religious life in these territories. The State religion is based solely on on the Fuhrer's will and is the only one which he wants in the State. In the countries which have been incorporated into the Reich a State Church has been formed—in Alsace, Austria and Sudeten Germany. These tendencies have been enforced in the extreme and these countries are to be made a model for the spiritual structure of the rest. The announcer spoke of the difficulties and obstacles placed in the way of priests and members of religious communities attempting to fulfil their duties. He stated that lecturers, teachers and propagandists inculcated pagan principles and that German youth were deprived of proper religious instruction. Even in schools where the priest is, in theory, admitted, he often finds the door closed upon him. The priest, he went on, is treated with disrespect. He is considered to be outside the life of the State. He is methodically ignored and his prestige is lessened every day. Officials are subject to disciplinary measures if they fulfil their religious duties. All that remains of the one-time great Catholic Press of Germany are a few parish magazines and even these have to be edited with the greatest care in order to avoid being accused of interfering in political matters. Since 1933, Rosenberg, the Nazi Party's philosopher, has been given charge of the spiritual life of the Nationalist Socialist Party, and in 1937 it was declared that his writings are to be the gospel of the "myth" that Germany must have for her own race, Catholicism being dismissed as a myth only suitable for the Mediterranean.
Every line of that was censored. The censorship was asked if they would permit publication of what I have just read in the Press of Ireland and they said, "Not a line, not a word."
I want here to reiterate that I am not suggesting that The Taoiseach or his colleagues are in a dark conspiracy to blacken the name of the Catholic Church or to co-operate in derogation from the devotion we pay it. I am pointing out to the House how the power of censorship has been allowed to demoralise its administrators, and I believe that they have lost sight of the lengths to which they have allowed themselves to go. I take this opportunity of putting it before them in all the horror that it presents to an outside observer so that they may come to understand why we are asking for some new dispensation that will preserve the censorship in a form that is tolerable to honourable people. I interpolate that again, because I am going to indicate to the House something which I think casts a shocking light on the censorship administration. I have shown how the Vatican pronouncements were ruthlessly suppressed. But this was permitted to be published in an Irish newspaper:—
"Able-bodied men are no longer able to enter monasteries in Germany or to become monks. This prohibition is contained in a decree, valid throughout the whole of the Reich,
issued jointly by the Reich Minister of Labour, the Reich Church Minister and the Führer's deputy. The decree aims at assuring the nation's requisite labour supply, and states that it is undesirable that any person able to work should enter religious seclusion, or become a member of an ecclesiastical order involving his withdrawal from productive labour."
Here is a Nazi version of a decree which forbids any young man to enter a religious Order. The Nazi decree meant let the old monks die so long as we have the young prevented from getting into their clutches. We can see the old fellows drop off so long as there are no young men to take their places. An Irish newspaper may print the Nazi version, that this is done to preserve the labour supply in an urgent time. Listen to this, a message which was elaborated a week later. It was thought perhaps that the first one did not carry sufficient conviction to the innocents, so Goebbels returned to the charge the following week. The following propaganda paragraph appeared in an Irish paper:
"The German radio states that it is the religious Orders themselves which have no interest in accepting people whose only reason for entering is to escape their civic duties and, apart from this, there is nothing to prevent any German who is really in earnest from entering religious Orders, the message adds."
That Nazi propaganda is taken from the German radio and copied into Irish papers, but the Pope's pronouncement on the same thing is censored and is cut out as being unfit for publication in neutral Ireland. Deputies may wonder that I ask for an administration of the censorship powers which will command the confidence of our people. This is no occasion to tear a passion to tatters. I plead guilty sometimes, when feeling deeply as I do about this matter, to speaking perhaps a little strongly. I deliberately desire to avoid that to-day. I believe that when we are confronted here with evil, it is in the common interest of us all to abate it.
I am now going to read for the House words taken from the pastoral of an Irish Bishop that were struck out by the censor. I want to ask Deputies of this House quite objectively, do they think that the censor who struck these words from the Bishop's pastoral acted within the scope of the authority that they intended to confer upon him? These are the words:—
"We know what the Poles are suffering and we know how the Dictator has treated the Church in Germany. Can we look with indifference on God dethroned from His rightful place in the universe? Can Catholics view with easy minds the possibility of a victory which would give brute force the power to control Europe and decide the fate of small nations?
"Thoughtless persons give no heed to these prospects, yet they may become very real. Such an attitude of indifference to the religious outlook of the future is treason to our faith. This mentality is caused by the persuasion that anything that injures a hereditary enemy is good for us. Even if true, political expediency should not weigh in the balance against Christianity."
Now, you may agree with that or you may differ with it. You may think it right or wrong, but do you think it right that it should be suppressed as unfit for the eyes of Irishmen to see? Do you think that the Government, the trustee of our liberties, should so far submit to belligerent blackmail as to suppress that in order to please a diplomat accredited to our Government? I do not. My experience in the world has taught me that, if the blackmailer makes extravagant demands upon you, the sooner you call his bluff and tell him that you will pay no more, the less trouble you will ultimately have with him; but yield to his first assault, surrender what you think you should not have surrendered for peace sake once, and his demands become greater and greater as you fall back along the path of slavery.
Our people may have feared, as all true men should fear, the consequences of standing for our rights to-day. Our people may be prepared to waive punctilio rather than face the horror of war, but I do not believe our people are prepared to allow any statesman in Europe to silence the Pope or their Bishops because what they say displeases the statesmen of Europe. If we encourage the statesmen in Europe to believe that now, a day may come when our people will vindicate their right to hear those voices with their blood, whereas if it is made quite clear to them that if they attempt to rob them of that right they could not, a bloody sacrifice might never be called for. I have spoken of the suppression of that pastoral and of those Vatican pronouncements on the grounds that they might give possible offence to certain diplomats. But this vigilant censor so anxious about the susceptibilities of the equally vigilant diplomat allows a newspaper in this country to quote the Spanish paper Ya, and to describe it as a Catholic newspaper. This paper states: “that the German Government has taken care that the religious life there should receive as strong an impulse as possible; that there is no intention of influencing Catholic life in the general government in any way, and instead Germany's high respect for religion is indicated.”
One version of what is happening in Germany is given publicity, the version sponsored by Goebbels and promulgated by a silenced priest called Krawczyk. He was stripped of his holy ordination by the bishop who ordained him. That filth is presented to our people, but the voice of the Vatican correcting it is silenced, and our people are assured that they are getting a detached and an objective report of all that passes in Europe. While Krawczyk, the silenced priest, can spread his propaganda, the Pope's attempt to contradict it is censored from the news. Have people noticed recently that, while the censor was vigilant to see that no one would suggest that Nazi Germany was persecuting anybody, and that Krawczyk might be quoted to show that nothing was further from their mind, in the same paper where Krawczyk pays testimony to Hitler's magnanimity, splash headings declared that England was in a conspiracy to persecute the Catholics of the North. If we are so solicitous about the feelings of the Reich, has the British Government got no feelings at all?
If, in order to appease the Reich, the Pope must be silenced and the Bishops censored, may the British Government ask that an exuberant leader-writer should be restrained, or is it that we are prepared to give to those we fear that which we withhold from those we know will not act the bully in our regard? God forbid that that should ever be said of our people. Arrogant we might be, sometimes unjust, but perish the thought that we would ever crawl before a bully and insult those who we believe would treat us with equity and justice. Before I pass from the subject of that persecution in Poland, I want to ask this question. If a book published by Burns, Oates and Washbourne, called "The Persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland", is to be banned from our mails by the censor, and forbidden to the Post Office to carry, why is the Post Office made the daily agent of the Radio Stefani and the Italian Embassy in this city to distribute Italian propaganda every day? Deputies in this House know that they receive morning after morning the tendentious propaganda of the Italian Government, carried by the postman to their door.
In a newspaper of December 6th there appears a letter from a correspondent, signed G. O'Doherty of Tyrone, commending the new order, pointing out that Germany and Italy and Hungary are hoping to create a new order in which Ireland can play her part, and another letter, signed "Scotus", appears in a newspaper dated November 1st, drawing attention to the fact that:
"The Ministers of Italy and Germany are known throughout Ireland for the sympathy and understanding with which they regard this nation's reaction against the Versailles conception of a European political and economic order, while for their part the Irish people realise that it was in Italy that the movement for the reconstruction of Europe began, a movement in which war was never contemplated as an essential factor, as may be remembered by those who read the pronouncements of the Italian and German Ambassadors in London in May, 1939."
If those letters are published, why is it that, when another citizen of this State writes to the same paper and puts his point of view, the editor says: "I will gladly print your letter if the censor will let me," but writes on 12th December: "Further to my letter of the 6th, I regret to say that, as I feared, your letter was stopped by the censor"? Does the Taoiseach quarrel with me for holding that there is good ground here for asking that an administration of censorship powers should be established which would command the confidence of our people? I ask this House: when we gave the Government power to exercise those Draconian laws, did we anticipate that they would rule for all time, that they would suppress anything and everything which criticised the censorship either directly or indirectly? If we heard that the Gestapo in Germany publicly proclaimed to the world that anything which commented adversely, directly or by implication, on the Gestapo, would be prohibited in Germany, would we not say: "There, from its own mouth, it stands convicted as a beastly instrument of tyranny"? Change the word "Gestapo" to "Irish censor" and that is the law in Ireland. Here on the floor of this House is the only place where you can speak words that will be reduced to print critical of the censor or designed to direct the attention of our people to the encroachments which that officer is making on their liberty.
The Taoiseach and the censor will say: "But you can say anything you like Who is stopping you from speaking? Provided you speak within the law you are as free as the birds of the air." What man can speak to 3,000,000 people? Were he able to gather them into one place, what human voice will reach them? What is more maddening than the attempt to persuade you that you have got your liberty, the specious suggestion that there has been nothing taken away, when in fact you know you have been left with the shell, but that the substance has gone, and that your power to awaken the people to the dangers that lie ahead and to the diminution of their freedom is made doubly and trebly grave by the hypocritical shell that the censor has left you, the right to speak with the assurance that you will not be heard?
Since when has the safety of this State demanded that the Taoiseach should not be criticised? Can Deputies of this House believe that a newspaper in this State, not one month ago, was told that it must not say: "The Taoiseach was criticised"? It was told: "You may say `there was a reference to the Taoiseach' but you must strike out the word `criticised'." The Taoiseach went on the air on St. Patrick's Day to tell the world that we were blockaded by both sides, and that we had no desire to be involved in an imperial adventure. I do not want to misquote him in any way, and, if I have, I would be glad that he would correct me. Tactfully enough—I speak ironically—the persons to whom he addressed that message were the American people, who were just girding up their loins to get into what he described as an imperial adventure. Now, I know the American people very well, and I love and honour the American people, as most people in this country who remember the deep obligation under which Ireland lies to America must love and honour them. Like every other nation, she has her imperfections and her self-deceptions, but her worst enemies will never charge her with being a nation with imperialist ambitions, desirous of building up greatness on the ruins of the weak. If we would hold the sympathy that has so often sustained us in the past, I cannot commend the tact of a national leader in this country who would tell America: "We want to stay neutral, for we want to be involved in no imperial adventure" in the very hour when the American people, almost unanimously, resolved to throw their weight into the struggle on the side where they believed right and justice lay.
I do not think it is very tactful, if you depend for all you have got in the way of raw materials and imports on the ships and convoy of a neighbour country, to tell that country that it is blockading you in the same way that Germany—who has warned us that she has mined our waters and will blockade us with her warships whether we like it or not—is blockading us. If the Taoiseach cannot see any difference between the attitudes of those two countries, most reasonable men can, and, surely to God, in this country it will not imperil the life of the nation if one of those reasonable men ventures to criticise, not the Taoiseach himself, but his broadcast? But the censor in this State says "No, you may refer to his broadcast, but you must not criticise it." Is there any figure in history, since Nero sat upon the throne of Rome, who was immune from criticism? I can think of none. I think Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin boast that they want their friends to criticise them, to tell them their faults; that they want to improve with every day. Nero and Caligula could not be criticised because they were gods. Our Prime Minister may sometimes think himself a prince, I know, but to date I have never charged him with the delusion of thinking he was a god.
Is it desirable in this country to use the censorship to suppress discussion, legitimate discussion about domestic affairs? Here is a man who writes a letter to the paper saying that when nobody can get petrol he does not see why Ministers and their wives should be flying around in their motor cars, getting all the petrol they want. I think that is "codology." I think the Ministers must use their cars, and they would be damned fools if they sent the Prime Minister home on his bicycle. I am prepared to join issue with any obscurantist, any pot-walloper, down the country, who-wants to suggest that Ministers should be harried and insulted because they use their cars to get about on the State's most important business. But, in heaven's name, why should the censor prohibit the pot-walloper who believes that Ministers should travel on bicycles from saying so? Surely that does not imperil the State.
I have in my hands a letter in which a man says that he thinks the Government ought to give 50/- for wheat, and that they should guarantee a price for cereal oats. It was stopped by the censor. There is the letter, and there is the censor's endorsement, "Stopped by Censor." It is a trivial thing, almost pertaining to absurdity; but such things are portents, and those who are wise will recognise them before they acquire a gravity out of all proportion to their essence. They are trivial nothings now, but if they are the first milestones on the road that lead to slavery, they will become famous in the history books of this country, and it is our duty to recognise them now while there is time to stop that march, and, scorning them for the trivialities of their essence, bless them for the warning they gave us while there was still time to act and tell the censor that "they may not do that here," that the humblest man with the silliest idea may communicate by free speech, that he has the right to think and speak and act freely within the law, and that his neighbours shall have free access to his thoughts.
I speak of a matter now which may not command the sympathy of the House, but in which I think, as an humble citizen, that my predilection is entitled to consideration. Why should a little Irish girl from Ballaghaderreen, who bears herself bravely and reflects the utmost credit on herself and her family during the blitz in London, Manchester or Glasgow, be banned from the columns of an Irish newspaper? If any boy or girl from this country bears himself or herself bravely and wins encomiums of praise from those who see them in the midst of desolation, and if that fact is reported from any part of Great Britain to an Irish newspaper, it is immediately stamped, "Banned by the Censor." I will not read them all; they are all simply, you may say, trivial little stories of individual acts of heroism that reflect honour on this country and credit on those who were responsible for them. They may be published from Southampton to Singapore, but in the Twenty-Six Counties of Eire they are obscene.
A young Irishman went out to take his part in what he felt was a fight for great principles, the sort of fight so gloriously described in the immortal lines of the late Tom Kettle which I was recently privileged to quote, and he died. He died for that cause. Let me read the story of how his death was recorded in Ireland, his own country. This is the paragraph as it was printed by those who knew nothing of him except that he came from Ireland and he died doing his duty:—
The funeral took place, with naval honours, from Belfast City Mortuary to the City Cemetery, of Commander F. Halloran, R.N., who lost his life attempting to rescue a sailor from drowning. Deceased was a former Irish rugby international. Included in the cortege were 60 officers and men from the late Commander's ship. The Irish Rugby Union were represented.
All that was desired was to record that he went down to his grave with all the honours that his comrades could offer, and here is what the Irish censor said: "You must strike out the words `with naval honours'; you must strike out the word `commander'; you must strike out the letters `R.N.'; you must strike out the words `in his cortege 60 of his comrades walked', and you must print the paragraph thus: `The funeral took place from Belfast City Mortuary to the City Cemetery of F. Halloran. He rescued a sailor from drowning. Deceased was a former Irish rugby international. The Irish Rugby Union were represented !"
If he had been a crossing sweeper who had drawn his £2 weekly wage cleaning the streets of Belfast, his passing could have been no more ignominiously described. Why, at the instance of the German Embassy, should we conspire to insult our dead? Why should Commander Halloran's name be hidden when his death redounds for ever to the glory of our country? Why should the fact that he was ours be represented to the world as something we are ashamed to claim? We are not ashamed to claim it and the censor who thinks we are is mad. And that is true from the most irreconcilable supporter of the Taoiseach to the most conservative survivor of reaction in this country. Why, when the army of the Nile—not our Army, but the British army—and the British fleet—not our fleet—swept to victory under the leadership of seven men, five of whom were Irish, was it necessary to print in this country that, of the seven commanders, two came from England and five from Japan—Cunningham, O'Moore Creagh, Wilson, O'Connor and Somerville—all from Japan—North and South Island? Did Dáil Eireann mean censorship powers to be used that way?
But there is a ray of credit here. When the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures was taxed with this, he denied it. Speaking in the Seanad, Senator Keane said "The Press is required to revise the announcements of deaths of Irishmen, no matter where they die, and it is an unreasonable power of censorship." Mr. Aiken replied: "It was not done." Let Deputies listen to this because it is perhaps as dramatic a thing as has happened. The report of that was sent to the censor's office, with a footnote from the newspaper which had printed it stating:
"Mr. Aiken's denial that the announcement of the deaths of Irishmen abroad have been prohibited by the censor is contrary to the facts. We have on our own files records of such prohibitions. On last Monday —48 hours before Mr. Aiken made his speech—the announcement of the death abroad of a well-known Dublin doctor was prohibited by Mr. Aiken's censor."
Mr. Aiken's denial was passed by the censor but the newspaper's demonstration that his denial was false was suppressed by the censor, and the newspaper was compelled to print Mr. Aiken's defence, without the proof of his guilt, or to print nothing at all. Is that the way we expected the censorship to be used?
The censor in this country is a resourceful man. He is not only prepared to suppress the news, but he is prepared to re-write the news. The censor says here: "If you get messages from the Associated Press, which is an American agency, from Berlin or Paris, and the American correspondent says `To-day such and such an event has taken place in Berlin,' you must not publish that. You must say `To-day, it is reported that such and such an event has taken place in Berlin'. You must create that little spark of doubt in our people as to the veracity of the report of this incident, because it may not be true, but you must not leave it to the people to determine whether it is true. You must tell the people, by implication, the way Taoiseach de Valera thinks they ought to think about that piece of news. Now I know the Taoiseach is a didactic man. He was ever thus, but surely he will content himself with lecturing us without lecturing the whole Irish people.
That is not the limit of the censor's versatility. There are a few experienced leader-writers in this country, and no newspaper proprietor or editor—I ask the House to note this well—has the right to pervert the facts. He has as solemn a duty as could rest upon any citizen to print the news as he gets it, and as he believes it to be true, but, when it comes to his leading article, he has the right that any of us has to cast up the news, to put his interpretation upon it, and to say to his readers: "That is the way the news strikes me". But the censor does not think so. The censor takes the leading article and says: "You must not say: `Since the adhesion of Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Pact was first mooted, it has been manifest that the Army and people were in large numbers opposed to the proposal'. You must say: `It is reported that the people were opposed to it', so that those of our friends who desire to say it was the nasty British who put out this ugly rumour in order to help the putsch in Yugoslavia can say: `Oh, but the paper does not say it was manifest that so-and-so; it says it was reported it was so, and do we not all know where such reports come from?' ”
When the editor wanted to say in the leading article: "All these events amount to a reverse for Germany in the diplomatic arena, and may cause her to revise whatever military plans she had," the censor says: "No, you must not say that Germany has had a diplomatic reverse. That might vex the Embassy. Cut that line out." When the editor wanted to say: "Although no official declaration on the point has been issued at Belgrade, the action taken by the King and Government is actually a repudiation of the Pact," the censor says: "No, you must not say that. You must not give that as your opinion. You must substitute my opinion that the action of the King may be a repudiation of the Pact." The newspaper wants to go on and say: "It is abundantly clear that the people are now resolved to support the new regime," but the censor says: "No, you must not say nasty things like that, or the Embassy will be vexed. You must say that the Yugoslav people are resolved to resist aggression and, then, if the Minister comes to complain, we can say to him: `You are not going to aggress them, are you?', and we have him hoist with his own petard."
That is childish in one way, but it is bad enough to censor the facts; it is bad enough to tell us what we may say and what we may write, but, my God, are you going to tell us what we may think? That is what your censor is claiming to do. There is no body in this State, from the meanest local authority up to the President, who has the right to tell me what I will think, and there is nobody, however high, however sacrosanct, in this country that has the right under God's law to tell me what to think, and any law or any claim to impose that upon the humblest citizen of this State is overridden by a higher law, which there is no power in the hands of man to amend, and the censor who challenges that law will fall by that law, for the Irish people will never abandon that law or surrender their rights under it.
Let us take the position of Deputies who stand upon the razor-edge of neutrality. Let us assume that we are all agreed that there is to be strict neutrality—and God knows we are not, but let us assume we are—and let us ask ourselves this question: Is it fair to print the German claim that they have shot down hundreds of British aeroplanes and have the Royal Air Force on the run and to censor the British reply, and when they are asked: "If you allowed the German communiqué to be published between 13th July and 26th July, claiming mighty victories in the air, why did you refuse us the right to publish the British communiqué, taking those claims one by one and making their comment upon them?” the answer of the censor is:
"I am directed by the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures to refer to your letter with reference to the suppression of a statement which purported to have been issued by the Air Ministry News Service on July 26th——"
that is Civil Service-ese for "the British side of the story".——
"——and to state that, while it has been and will continue to be the censorship policy of the Government to allow publicity for official statements issued by or on behalf of any of the States which are belligerents in the present war, the censorship reserves and may from time to time exercise the right to prohibit the publication of any particular statement if it thinks fit."
Do Deputies think it was fitting to publish the Nazi side of the story and to censor the British version of the same facts? I do not believe that a single Deputy who gave these powers to the Government ever meant that they would be used in that way. Is it treason in this country to pull Frank Aiken's leg—or, perhaps, I should say the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures' leg? The Minister for Co-Ordination got up in this House and made a silly speech, in which he said he sometimes wished that all the ships in the world were sunk to the bottom of the sea and that, if they were, we might have to adjust ourselves to the new situation and we would be much better off.
He did not say that, of course.
Words to that effect. He went to Drogheda and, whatever he said here, he sang a different song in Drogheda. The tears were streaming down his face in grief and sympathy with the disemployed operatives of Drogheda whose factories could not get supplies of raw material. He said: "I have come to you to-day to tell you we are going to do something about it; we are going to get ships and raw materials in for you; we are going to get a mercantile marine which will carry the goods you want over the seas to Ireland." At that, there were loud and ecstatic cheers from the audience at Drogheda, who had not read the speech made three days previously by the Minister in the Dáil. Senator Milroy sharpened his pencil. He wrote a letter in which he said that he thought that when Mr. Aiken got his job as Minister for Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures, £1,700 was wasted, but if that Minister would now devote his energies to co-ordinating the Minister for Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures with Frank Aiken, then he thought the money would be well spent, because they would find out whether he means what he says in Dáil Eireann or what he says in Drogheda. It was a good-humoured letter. It was not an epoch-making letter, but it was a perfectly valid piece of political jocularity which brought home to the people the irresponsibility of the Minister in the public affairs of the country. That letter was suppressed. It "imperilled the neutrality of Ireland, or tended to undermine the safety of the State." Did the most acrimonious partisan of the Fianna Fáil Party ever intend that the censorship should be used for that? This is a grave matter, but it is my duty to bring before the House the absurdities as well as the bigger issues because, taken all together, they indicate a trend, and I am not without hope that, taken all together and laid before the Government en masse, they may open the Government's own eyes to the trend, and that, by approaching them in this spirit, we may get their co-operation to check this trend and to set right what is wrong.
On his way to open a War Weapons week in Shropshire, George Robey, the comedian, was given an onion, which he promptly auctioned for fifteen guineas. Can you imagine any more harmless news item than that? I should say that nobody in this country cared two hoots whether George Robey got an onion or whether he auctioned it. Would you believe it— the censor's department was thrown into confusion by the news. The blue pencil was produced, and all the newspapers in town were rung up and told: "Don't publish a line about George Robey and the onion." These particulars are true. I have seen the censor's "Stopped by the Censor." Every newspaper in Dublin and Cork was warned: "Publish a line about George Robey at your peril."
Another enterprising periodical was short of material to fill half a column. So they turned up their files and put a heading to the column: "War in East Africa." Then they said: "The following indicates the progress of the British forces in East Africa as it has taken place in the past six weeks:— February 2, Agardat captured; February, 3, Barentu captured; February 14, Kismayu captured...." This was simply a calendar of the events published in the Press. An urgent message came from the censor: "Stop the presses; at all costs get this out." There it is. There is no comment. There is nothing in it except an index of events recorded in the newspapers published during the previous fortnight. A photograph of the battleship "Vittorio" was submitted to the censor, and the answer came back not to stop it but to hold it for consideration. As practical men we know that there is nothing as stale as yesterday's news. The vessel had been sunk and if they did not publish the photograph the following morning they might as well be publishing Gaby Deslys' picture now. What was the astonishment of the newspaper editor, who had instructed his staff to jettison that picture, when he opened the rival newspaper—I need not name the rival—and there see the picture which he had been directed to hold. He wrote to the censor asking why his rival had been given permission to publish a photograph which he was told to hold for consideration. He was told that it was an unfortunate oversight and that it would not happen again. If Michael the Archangel were administering censorship that could happen. Papers are published at 2 o'clock in the morning, and the censor's anxiety is to get his decisions taken as quickly as possible so that the papers can go to press. I do not want to make much of that. Here, I think, is the jewel of the censor's activities. There is a paper published in the U.S.A. called "Time." Every year, on the 1st January, or in the first edition after the 1st January, "Time" publishes on its cover a photograph of "the man of the year." This year they published Churchill's picture. It was an interesting news item. There is a good deal of speculation in America as to whom "Time" will choose as the man of the year. It was a lean time, early in January, and a newspaper thought that they would make a little paragraph of this for a panel. They made an attractive little panel, and they headed it, in quotation marks, "Churchill, man of the year." Then they said: "Mr. Churchill has been selected man of the year for 1940 by `Time,' the weekly magazine. This designation is given every year by the editor to the man or woman who has effected the most dramatic change in the course of history in the past year.' "Time" man of the year for 1938 was Hitler, or 1939 Stalin." Could a more neutral statement than that be put into print?
The message was rushed down. This apparently threw the censor's office into a tail spin. It was perfectly neutral. It could not be banned on the ground of neutrality. It happened 3,500 miles away, and so it could not react very violently on the defence of this country. The worst enemy of the newspaper could not say that it was a secret relating to the strategy of Irish defence. So they decided on the middle course. They passed it subject to deletion, and the deletion was: "You must not put it in a box. Print it in small print in the middle of a column, but, woe betide you if you put it in a box." So the editor dropped it out altogether. Being an industrious man he bought his rivals' two papers the following morning and found it in a box in both. The offending box was in the Irish Press, the wicked box was in the Irish Times, and the virgin page of the Independent had no reference at all. The note that I put on my papers even when I last pinned them together was: “Are these follies or what?”
I love the liberties our people fought to gain. Most men in this House made a mighty contribution to that victory. Many men in this House staked their lives on Ireland's right to freedom. Many of us are born of families which for generations served in the struggle that this country might be free. We got our freedom and we enjoy it. Whether we are in Opposition or in Government, deeply discontented as we have been from time to time with what was passing in the public life of Ireland, we had the right, and we were proud of the right, to say that, in any case, in Ireland we have the right to think and to speak and to act freely within the law and to have free access to the thoughts of others.
We put those rights in trust to secure the greater good. We look to the men who act as trustees of those rights to see that every man and woman in Ireland understand the nature of our burden. We look to them to be more jealous of our liberties than we would be ourselves. I say that familiarity with the powers they acquired has betrayed them into assuming the role of pawnbrokers instead of trustees.
I claim now that effective measures should be taken to restore the capacity of trustee. I think the case I have made to-day entitles me to ask that all sections of this House who have lent their aid to this Government in a time of crisis, who have put their shoulder to the wheel without counting the political cost, are entitled to say, without apportioning blame, without condemning you for misfeasance or malfeasance, that the stewardship in this trust has been deserving of criticism. So precious is the treasure you hold that we claim the right to watch it with you. We recognise that liberties we fought for and would die for must, in this hour of crisis, be abridged that Ireland may survive in freedom and attain to unity. We ask now—no, we demand, that the watch over those liberties shall be shared by us all. We have the right to say to you now that the watch will be carried on in no captious spirit of obstruction.
There was a time when you might have suspected us of that intention, but you have not the right to entertain that suspicion now. We want to get general consent for the things that must be done if Ireland is to go safely through. We say that our experience teaches us that the watch upon these powers must be shared amongst us. I have made a case in justice for that demand, and I end by asking this, House to ensure that all of us will have, not indulgence, not something over and above that which a Higher Power conferred upon us, but simply this, and only this—justice, justice, justice.
I formally second the motion.
I am not quite sure whether Deputy Dillon has cast a spell over the House and that that is accountable for the unwonted pause between the termination of his speech and the next one. It was not my intention to enter into this debate at such an early stage. The question in my mind was whether or not I would be given an opportunity of intervening in the debate at all. Weighing up the possibilities of the question I must say that I did take the trouble to try to string a few sentences together so as to be able to give coherent expression to one or two points of view that I have on this matter. I was not very enthusiastic about intervening in this debate, partly because of the limitation, the unfair limitation to my mind, in the matter of time imposed on a debate on such an important question as this is, and partly because I am, like most of the Deputies in the House and most of the people outside, in a state of almost complete bewilderment in relation to the operation of the censorship. In these days when rumour is heaped on top of rumour, and when we eventually find that there is more than a little truth in those rumours, it is very difficult for us to retain our belief in the conduct of the censorship and our faith and belief in those responsible for its existence and operation. It is very difficult, in these times, to determine, in relation to news and views, where truth ends and fiction begins, and this may, I say, be a truly deplorable state of affairs for honest citizens to find themselves in, especially in a time of emergency such as exists at present.
Now, at the outbreak of war all of us were so alive to the dangers besetting this country economically and politically that this House freely gave the Government the very fullest and widest powers. Surely we had the right to expect that these powers would be appreciated to this extent, at any rate, that they would not be abused. Now, fundamentally, censorship is necessary in war time for the following reasons: firstly, to prevent the circulation by means of the Press of mischievous and sensational stories that would tend to undermine the morale of the people, or cause a state of unwarranted panic or fear; secondly, to prevent the circulation, by means of a popular Press, of propagandist and subversive material that would tend to undermine the authority of the State and its institutions; and, thirdly, to prevent the leakage of useful information in relation to our defence measures to possible enemies of the State, whether foreign or domestic, whether inside or outside the country.
These, I think, represent what is the object, or what should be the object, of censorship. But what do we find here? What is the position? Most of the Deputies, that is to say those Deputies who still think freely, although they do not speak and vote freely, must realise that censorship here is being manipulated to suppress the free expression of public opinion throughout the country, not only in matters relating to international affairs but in matters of purely domestic interest. Not a word and not a syllable is allowed to appear in the public press in relation to the moral issues at stake in the present titanic conflict now being waged over half the world. The statements of Bishops and of high ecclesiastical authorities are blue-pencilled as ruthlessly as the statements of political leaders and public dignitaries here and elsewhere. The news is presented in such a way in the newspapers, by reason of the mutilations of the censor, that the belligerents are all branded with the same brush, and are made to appear in the same robe as rogues, thieves and liars. No attempt whatever is made, or allowed to be made, to differentiate between one of the belligerents who, in spite of the fact that she is herself beleaguered on all sides, is responsible for the bringing to this country of every drop of petrol and every grain of tea that has entered this country since the beginning of the year 1939. No attempt is made to differentiate between that belligerent and the other belligerent who has done the utmost in his power to prevent supplies, essential to the vital needs of the people of this country, from arriving here.
It is quite possible that, in making a statement like that, I may expose myself to the risk of carrying the torch of Great Britain, but, let me say here and now, that I am neither afraid nor ashamed to indicate that my sympathies are all on the side of those small countries who, during the last 18 months, have been struggling, and struggling in vain, to maintain their freedom. The death rattles of those countries have fallen on deaf ears in Leinster House—Leinster House the general headquarters of all but one other small nation that, for centuries, fought and struggled to maintain its freedom. As I say, I am all on the side of those little plain, simple, ordinary people throughout Europe who still want to think freely, to speak, to talk, to write and to read freely, who when they go to their wireless sets want to turn on the knob and listen to sounds that are pleasing to their ears, irrespective of the origin of the country these sounds emanate from. It is only by very simple things that man knows he is free, and I would urge the Taoiseach to remember that. I would urge his Ministers to remember that, and, above all, I would urge his censor to remember that. Surely, in a country like this, neutral as it is, that degree of freedom should still be left to the Press to enable it to lead public opinion. In my opinion it is a very sad sight, and a very pathetic thing, to have a front bench of leaders on the right, and no leadership. What is that due to? Is it due to lack of moral courage? Is it due to loss of initiative? Is it due to the loss of the common touch, or is it due to a combination of all three factors?
Those are matters of speculation. To my mind, the main, if not the entire cause of this, is the fact that the Government has lost the common touch. How could it be otherwise, because the Ministers—or may I refer to them collectively as the Cabinet—when they are not at home are behind mahogany desks, and when they are not behind mahogany desks are sandwiched between a vanguard and a rearguard of 30-horse power vehicles? It may be well for the Government to bear in mind the incidents that are happening in southern Europe, the recent incidents in the Balkans. Trouble is again brewing in the Balkans. All of us are aware of the fate of a Government that has lost touch with its people. We are all aware of what happens. Let the Government take warning from that. Let the Government take heed of that. Let the Government regard that as a salutary warning. Happenings and incidents of that kind spread. They can spread as rapidly as, let me say, foot and mouth disease.
Now, I could cite numerous incidents which any fair-minded person would agree should have been allowed to appear in the public Press, but I will not take up the time of the House. I read very carefully the debate in the Seanad where numerous incidents were quoted. I listened with great interest to some of the incidents referred to by Deputy Dillon when he was introducing this motion. In addition to the debate in the Seanad let me say this; the principal speaker on the motion in the Seanad, a motion somewhat similar to this, cited numerous examples of matters which were dealt with unfairly by the censor. The very unfortunate thing about the matter, however, was that although the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures was in the House at the time, and he in theory at any rate is responsible for the operation of the censorship, he made no attempt to refute or accept as being true at least half the allegations made by that Senator. The only effort at reply was a very considerable amount of personal abuse. I should like to think that the abuse launched against the Senator on that particular occasion had no really vindictive feeling behind it, and was nothing more than a very well-known political ruse of drawing a red herring across the trail. As I said at the outset, I was hesitant to intervene in this debate because, like the majority of Deputies in this House, I am very much uninformed as to how the censorship is being operated, but, judging by data which have been provided here to-night by Deputy Dillon, and by little pieces of knowledge to be picked up here and there by closely perusing the Official Debates, and by reading between the lines in the newspapers, it is perfectly obvious to me at any rate that the present system of censorship is hopeless. I, therefore, wish to say that I heartily endorse the terms of this motion, and shall be pleased to accord it my fullest support.
Surely, there is a case for the Minister to answer?
I naturally was waiting until I heard a case made. I have heard Deputy Dillon state a case, but I do not say for a moment that he has made a case. I will intervene at this stage; I did not intend to, but in view of the suggestions that we have not got a case to make I certainly will intervene. I hold that so far no case has been made that censorship has failed. On the other hand, I am quite prepared to say that censorship has succeeded inasmuch as we have still retained our neutrality. From that point of view I say that censorship has not failed. I do say that in ordinary normal times of peace and goodwill there would not be found in this House one Deputy who would be prepared to stand behind a policy of censorship. I do not believe there would be found one Deputy who would be prepared to advocate a policy of censorship, nor do I believe that a Government which would be prepared to force upon the people a policy of censorship in times of ordinary peace could survive the outcry which would be raised against it. But these are not times of peace and goodwill. They are times which are pregnant with very grave and very serious responsibility for our people, and very grave and serious dangers for our people. I feel certain that the operation of censorship up to the moment has done more to preserve us against the dangers which beset us on all sides than anything else which we have been able to do.
I must admit that Deputy Dillon is able to make a good case, a very dramatic case, and one which appeals to the sentiments of those who are listening, but he has made statements here which have no foundation in fact. He has stated that words by the Holy Father were censored. I say that no words or statements issued by the Holy Father were ever censored in this country. He mentioned also the fact that the Vatican Radio was censored. The Vatican Radio is in no sense regarded as the mouthpiece of the Holy Father—the Holy Father has on occasions had to repudiate statements made on the Vatican Radio—nor is the Osservatore Romano regarded as an official publication of the Vatican. It is not edited by an ecclesiastic; it is edited by a layman. There again we have to deal with statements by the Osservatore Romano in the same way as we would deal with statements made in any other periodical. There are certain principles to which the censor has to apply himself, and they are simple principles. He will not allow anything to be published in the Press which is likely to jeopardise the neutrality of this nation. He will have to be the judge in respect of that. We cannot have half a dozen people giving us their opinions on the particular question. We must have one man whose judgment will be accepted. We have decided that, so far as the censor is concerned, he will be the final judge in respect to what is to be published and what is not to be published.
I am not going to suggest that the officials in the censor's department cannot make mistakes. I am sure they have made mistakes; I am sure they have made large numbers of mistakes and, no doubt, they will make mistakes again. That, I suggest, is very largely due to the type of work they have to undertake. I know something about newspaper production; I know something about the rush and the bustle that obtains in respect to late news coming in, and in respect to the examination and publication of such news. It is quite possible that certain things will be let through in one paper and stopped in another. It is quite possible, owing to the fact that large numbers of officers have to deal with the news, that some of these officers may take different views. In that way Deputy Dillon can show us a box in one paper, an empty space in another and, perhaps, an ordinary article in another. These things are possible. I do not think the officials in the censor's department are going to claim that they are infallible in that respect.
I have heard the statements made by Deputy Dillon. I have listened to them carefully and, beyond the statement he has made in respect to the Holy Father, which I want to state now is not correct, I do not think there are any things that need very serious comment. It may be quite true that something about George Robey and an onion was stopped. That is quite possible, but I cannot give a reason why such a seemingly ridiculous thing was stopped. I have no doubt there will be some explanation of the matter forthcoming. Anyhow, censorship will have to be regarded in this State as something that must be abided by. It has, as I have mentioned, preserved us up to the present. I hope that by its operations it will continue to preserve what we have up to the moment; that is, the peace and quiet that do not exist in other countries. We are not anxious to get into the war. I felt from the remarks that Deputy Dillon was making this evening that he would not mind if we were in the war. This House decided—I think it decided unanimously—that the proper policy should be a policy of neutrality and, until somebody puts down a motion that neutrality should no longer obtain and that some other policy should replace it, I feel that the type of speech that was made here this evening will do us a grave disservice.
I want to intervene in this debate mainly to deal with the activities of the Minister whose duty it is to deal with the censorship department. I intend to refer to one particular item of his work. That particular item came into a discussion in the Seanad on the 4th December last on a motion dealing with the censorship and the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures gave us a very clear idea of what his interpretation of censorship is. The person who introduced the motion about the censorship in the Seanad referred to a certain item that appeared in the Cork Examiner. It was an item dealing with the destruction of salmon and trout in the Blackwater.
A certain journalist in Mallow, a reputable journalist regularly employed by the Cork Examiner for a number of years, sent in a report to her paper that a number of salmon and other fish had been killed in the river—that they had been killed by an effluent from the beet factory. The Censorship Department prevented that statement from being published, and the mover of the motion in the Seanad commented on the fact that the Censorship Department had prevented it from being published. The Minister justified the censor's action in terms which, if he had made them outside the House, possibly would have rendered him liable to a civil action on behalf of the journalist.
I will quote from Volume 24, No. 22, col. 2607, of the Official Report. The Minister, dealing with the report that was censored, described the journalist who sent in that report as the type of person "on whom we have got tabs fairly well for the past few years"; as the type of person who was prepared to send out an untrue story, no matter what damage it did to the country, in order to get a few pence out of it; as the type of person who is willing to earn a few pence by crying down his own country, and as the type of person who should be taken by the back of the neck and given a couple of years in jail. That was statement made by the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures about a journalist in this country. He made that statement under the protection of privilege in the Seanad. The journalist, who sent in that report in good faith, who sent in a report that could have been verified by everybody who lives between Mallow and Fermoy, that could have been verified by every Civic Guard who walked along the Blackwater during that period, was attacked in those terms in the Seanad by the Minister under the shadow of privilege.
The journalist has no redress. She is put in the position that a report appeared in every paper in this country of the Minister's references to her— that she was not a fit person to send in a report, that she was a person prepared to sell her country for a couple of pence. The Minister made that statement without inquiring into its truth, and the only explanation he could give for his attitude was that his Department yielded a little to the temptation to stop the story for 24 hours until the Department of Fisheries had got hold of the truth.
The Department of Fisheries never issued a statement contradicting one word written by the journalist. Apart from the international reactions to censorship, and apart from the national and internal reactions to censorship, are we going to let a Minister for State get up in the Seanad, or in this House, and try to justify the actions of the censor by stating, without any advertence to the truth of the situation, or enquiring amongst reliable people in that area, that the journalist was a person who would cry down the country for the sake of a few pence?
Did the Minister say that?
He did.
Will the Deputy quote the whole statement?
The Minister referred to a certain type of journalist and he said they were honourable people. In the text he said that a certain type of journalist is an honourable man who thinks of his country and does not want to do to the State, as a whole, or any portion of it any harm, adding:
and he will not earn a few pennies by crying it down, but there are some people in this country—and we have got tabs on them fairly well this last year or so—who are prepared to do anything.
He used those words in the context: "if this lie had got out and had got 24 hours' start of the truth" and so on. Is that a reference to the journalist who sent in that statement or not? If those words are put in the context: "if this lie got 24 hours' start of the truth," is the reference not to that journalist? Will the Taoiseach listen to this:
It appeared to the Department of Fisheries that if this lie got out and got 24 hours' advance of the truth, it would have a very bad effect on the people in the locality along that river who are earning their livelihoods in keeping people who come there to fish. There should be some way of dealing with irresponsible statements of that kind and I think that, in ordinary times, we should have a law that a man who does deliberate damage like that should be taken by the back of the neck and given a couple of years in jail.
Does that statement now refer to that journalist or not? If the Taoiseach is satisfied that that statement did not refer to that journalist, I will make him a very fair offer: will the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures, when he returns from his sojourn in the United States, repeat that statement outside the House and risk facing an action in a civil court by that journalist?
I hope he will have something better to do.
I put it to the Taoiseach that if that statement was justified, it was an attack on the professional integrity and the character of a person earning a living as a journalist. I say that it is a scandal that a Minister should attack any person who is earning a livelihood, unless it is proved that that person made use of deliberate falsehoods against this country, by making a statement of that nature under the guise of privilege.
The greater the truth, the greater the libel.
It would take Deputy Briscoe to think of that argument and that answer. If it were a question of "the greater the truth, the greater the libel," I might suggest that no libel action could ever be brought against Fianna Fáil Deputies. If truth were the test of libel, they never stood in any danger of an action and the Deputy knows that as well as I do. But I do not mind the Deputy intervening. He refreshes me and gives me a chance to draw my breath. I ask the the Taoiseach if the Minister in charge of this Department regards his functions as entitling him to attack a journalist for sending in a certain report, without inquiring into the truth of the report, and if the Taoiseach intends to intervene in this debate, I ask him this question: when the Minister in the Seanad made the statement about a certain lie getting 24 hours' start of the truth, did the Minister then, or ever, investigate the truth or falsehood of the story sent in by that journalist? Were inquiries ever made of the local Gárdaí? Were inquiries ever made of the local board of conservators, who would be in a position to tell them what happened? Did they ever make inquiries as to whether the story was true or not, or did the censor merely delete the story, and, in justification of that action, the Minister gets up and makes that type of statement?
Assuming that the person who sent in that report did deliberately mislead the paper for which he was working, by sending in a small statement, would it still justify any Minister of State, who had any regard for the dignity of his position, who had any regard for the responsibilities of his office, in speaking on a motion in the Seanad, in referring to a particular item of news, the truth of which was in doubt at the time, in the terms and language he used—"will not earn a few pennies by crying down his own country,""should be taken by the back of the neck and given a couple of years in jail," and "we have got tabs on them fairly well in the last few years"? If that is the attitude of the Minister in charge of censorship in this country, it means that just because the Minister— not even the censor—gets the idea into his head that a report sent in by a journalist does not suit him, it can be stopped, and he can then say: "This journalist is not one of these honourable professional journalists who tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but one of these people who are prepared to do anything for the sake of a few pence."
I want to tell the Taoiseach that I have had experience of this particular journalist over a number of years, and that this journalist is not, and never was, a political supporter of mine. That journalist, no matter what her political opinions were, is a person who always put the truth into any report she gave, but just because, for once in her life, she put in something that did not suit the Ministry, she is a person not fit to be spoken of in any terms, except in terms of "should be taken by the back of the neck and given a couple of years in jail." Is that a sensible way of dealing with the matter?
Will the Deputy——
What does Deputy Loughman want to say about it?
The Deputy should not repeat himself.
All I say is, that I believe the statement that journalist sent in was true, that the facts were never investigated, and that if they have been, and it has been discovered that the report sent in was true, that journalist should either get an apology from the Minister, or the Minister should repeat his statement outside the privileges of this House or the Seanad, and face a civil action in the courts.
I wonder will the Deputy give us the exact despatch which was censored? I have not been able to find it.
I refer to column 2608, Volume 24, No. 22, of the Seanad Debates of 4th December, 1940. If the Taoiseach cares to listen to them, here are the words:—
I was led on to say it, and I agree with Senator Tierney that, in this particular case, it is debatable whether we went too far or not, but I am giving the facts of the case, that it appeared to the Department of Fisheries that if this lie had got out and got 24 hours' advance of the truth——
What was the lie? That is what I am trying to get at.
It was a report that salmon and other fish were poisoned in the River Blackwater.
Oh, now, now!
Here is what the Minister said:—
Senator Sir John Keane's big complaint, the complaint of which he made the most, was the prohibition of a report of the poisoning of certain fish in a river at Mallow.
May I take it, as the basis for my remarks, that this was the substance of the report: it was represented that for a distance of ten miles the river was filled with dead fish, that the shallows were choked with the carcases of trout in such numbers that it was possible to walk across the river on dead fish? Is that the report that was censored?
I am glad the Taoiseach has introduced that. I did not want to do it, but I knew that he would come to it. I am authorised to say, on behalf of this particular journalist, that if the facts are investigated, affidavits and sworn evidence can be got from people who live along the river, and from Civic Guards in the area, to show that the river in the shallows was choked with dead salmon.
That for a distance of ten miles the river was choked with fish. Am I to take seriously that that is the truth? I am reading the Seanad report. I have tried to get the original despatch to see what was in it.
I have the advantage, which I am not going to give to the Taoiseach, of having the original despatch.
I should love to see it.
I know you would. I am saying that the Minister went into the Seanad and made the statement that a certain journalist sent in a certain report, which, in fact, that journalist did not send. The report she sent in was in exact accordance with the facts. The Taoiseach can inquire as easily as I can from the Cork Examiner what the facts are, but if the Taoiseach feels that I have made my case on what the Minister said and on what, in my opinion, was definitely a statement that should not have been made under privilege, he can make what he likes of it. What I object to——
I understood that the Deputy had concluded his speech and resumed his seat.
The Taoiseach asked me to tell him something that, apparently, he knows nothing about.
I am glad that Deputy Linehan confined himself to this country. I listened to Deputy Dillon for one and a half hours and he travelled from America to Japan and from Japan to Poland, and not a word of reference did he make to this country. I am objecting to the censorship because the matter censored includes resolutions passed by public bodies and sent on to the Government and others. Some of these resolutions deal with political arrests. We have a number of internees here and in the North. Many things have been said and many resolutions have been passed on this matter and they are all being censored. These are the things I am objecting to and I am prepared to say that many of these things are being censored without any justification. If we confine ourselves to our own country, we shall be far safer than we would be by travelling all over the world.
Deputy Dillon referred to Rome and the Vatican. Deputy Hickey does not object to that?
I have more respect for the Vatican State than either Deputy McGovern or Deputy Dillon.
I know that. It does appear as if our neutrality were thinly disguised. The censorship is very extreme in ruling out certain items of news, but, on the other hand, there is no regard for the propaganda that is given out not only to the average individual but, what is more important, to the young people whose minds are not matured and who are sent to school and instructed to trust their teachers. These individuals, whose aim should be to guide the minds of the growing population, are using their position to instil anti-British propaganda into minds in some cases. I do not say that of the teachers as a class. As a class they are most respectable, but there are individuals doing this and the Minister for Education has taken no steps in the matter.
That is not relevant to censorship.
I understood it is connected with neutrality and the way neutrality is being carried out.
Neutrality is not the subject of this debate.
If I am out of order I do not want to abuse my position. What I have said is important with regard to the question of neutrality, and I think that the spirit of this motion has reference to neutrality and the way it is being carried out. I think that there should be a censorship of individuals who use their position to put propaganda over on young unformed minds and make these young people potential jailbirds.
The censor has no responsibility for the Department of Education.
Somebody must have censored the prophecies of Colmcille.
When this war broke out, one of the first things we had to look to, if we were to maintain our neutrality, was to see that people and newspapers who might hold strong views on one side or the other would not be permitted to bring this country into the conflict. Everybody knows that, in this country, we are not all of the same opinion. Certain people have opinions very much one way and certain people have sympathies very much the other way, and if you were to have that freedom of speech which we have in normal times, it would be inevitable that we should have a violent conflict very rapidly between sections of our own people, and that the warring parties, who would have a special interest in developing that, would make use of it to the full.
In a very short time, we would have not only internal turmoil but we would quickly find ourselves in a position in which we would be bringing ourselves into conflict with one side or the other. We have not had much experience of a situation like the present situation. This is the first experience we have had of it as a free community. It is novel to us. The restraints which other free communities have had under similar circumstances to put upon themselves are, naturally, galling to us and we chafe at them, but no country in a situation like ours has been able to pass through a period like this while allowing all its citizens to give free expression to their views on the merits of the conflict, and to take up strong partisan positions. In the long run, they would find themselves overwhelmed, either through internal conflict or through attack from outside. The fact that we approach the matter in a prudent way like that, as all reasonable people would approach it, is no reason why we should be taunted with being timorous or having to obey the crack of the whip of one embassy or another here. That is untrue. We believe we have a right to live our own life in the way that is best in the interests of our own people, and we intend to maintain that right.
Hear, hear!
This House and the vast majority of the people have decided that it is in their interest to keep out of this conflict. We had to implement that policy by preventing individuals who might have strong feelings one way or another from involving us in the conflict. It is unfortunate, of course, that things are not otherwise and that we cannot have democracy in the sense that, when a majority decision has been taken, the minority have still complete freedom of action against it. Democracies have never been able to fight a war with that freedom. If they wanted to wage a war successfully, they have had practically to insist that, when a decision was taken as a State decision, that decision should be implemented and all the citizens should obey it. In other words, it was made law.
You can easily see what would happen here if we were fighting for our lives, and, in a sense, we are fighting for our lives at present. If we were actually engaged in physical conflict and fighting for our lives, is it suggested that because of the democratic right which normally obtains in peace time of free expression, it should be permitted to any section that opposed the war to stand up against it and, by doing so, help to bring danger on the nation as a whole? I think you will all agree that that could not be permitted; that, in fact, it is not permitted by democratic states or by any other state in a time of war. But we are, in fact, threatened with the same danger of destruction as if we were in physical conflict because a small state, no matter how strong we feel our rights are, is not in a position to make good those rights. It can stand by them; it can fall by them; but it is not in a position to impose respect for those rights on larger states.
Our position here from the start has been this, that we do not want to interfere with other people, but we insist on, and would if necessary fall in the attempt to defend our own right against being interfered with. It is simply to maintain that position and to see that we would not be brought into the conflict by the foolish action of individuals, who are thinking in a personal way or in a sectional way, that the censorship was established. It was established mainly to preserve internal peace and, so far as it could be done by imposing prudence in expression, also to keep us at peace with other nations.
Censorship is the most difficult of all the tasks of war. It is difficult because in fact it is to parry weapons which the belligerents are using one against the other. If it were possible to have one person in such a capacity to deal with the whole mass of matter that has to be censored, it would be difficult for him to keep absolutely so even in his judgment on particular cases and to apply his general principles to particular cases in such a way that it could not be brought against him that he was acting in some way which was inconsistent. To-night he may be weary, in the morning he may be fresh. His judgment on the matter and his application of the principles may not be quite the same. If you get the result of his judgment in the morning and put it with his judgment in the evening, and if you do as Deputy Dillon and some other speakers have done, namely, go over the operations of the censorship for one and a half years, it would be possible to pick out and keep things on the one side or on the other side and say that that person was not acting uniformly. If you keep the carefully selected mistakes and the apparent biases on one side and present these and do not present the others, you can say that he is biassed in some direction.
But you must remember that the censorship is not done by one man, that in the nature of things it has to be done by several men, and that it has to be done under conditions of great rapidity, because the one thing that would not be forgiven to the censor would be if he delayed his decisions. His decisions have to be prompt. Anybody who is acquainted with the work of a newspaper office knows the rapidity with which the work has to be done in order to get the news prepared and ready for the morning. Therefore, to delay a decision unduly would practically mean that you were preventing the newspapers from doing their work. These decisions, therefore, have to be made quickly, and they have to be made by a number of people. It would be impossible to get one man to do the censorship. Knowing that no human being is other than fallible, it would be possible to take the result of his work and to make a case against him and say that he was biassed on this side or that.
That is all that has been done this evening. There has been a selection of cases. Deputy Dillon has been carefully briefed with regard to matters arising over a long period, and he presents the House with a selection from one side and says: "Judge from that and you will see that the censorship is being conducted in a way that is biassed, and that the person who is in charge is not a proper person to be in charge."
As I have said, the work of censorship is extremely difficult. I, at any rate, am satisfied that the work in the censor's office is being carried on honestly and sincerely in accordance with general principles, having no thought whatever of anything except the interests of our people and the safety of our community during this trying period. There is no other motive actuating the censorship staff except that one idea—to implement the general policy of the State, to try to maintain calm here and to prevent the people from being heated up by propaganda from one side or the other; to try, so far as it is possible for any community to get them, to get the facts and to prevent, so far as they can, biassed comments on those facts. Do we want that or do we not? I take it we do. I take it that Deputy Dillon's chief complaint is that we have not the freedom of expression which we all admit it is desirable we should have. We cannot have the two things.
My complaint is that the administration of the censorship is unsatisfactory, and unduly restricts legitimate freedom of expression. I invite the Taoiseach to relate his remarks to the deletion of the words that his broadcast was criticised. How can he justify that?
So far as the Minister for Defence and I are concerned, the trouble is that a lot of particular cases were taken up. We have to get the information about them as quickly as we can. Neither the Minister who spoke already nor I have the close knowledge of these things which would enable us to give all the facts and present the cases as they occur with all the surrounding circumstances, because there may be a good reason for doing something in a certain atmosphere a month or six weeks ago which may not apply to-day. The trouble is that these things have to be taken as they come. They have to be taken in a certain set of conditions, and, unless you can reproduce those conditions, you are not able to judge fairly as to whether the censorship was satisfactorily done or not. Reference has been made to my broadcast. I say that that has been completely and absolutely misrepresented, as much misrepresented in its tenor and general purport as was the statement of the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures when he spoke about ships.
Are we going back to that?
The Deputy can go back as much as he likes. I read carefully the statement of the Minister in the Dáil because I was annoyed, naturally, when I saw the way in which it was misrepresented abroad and in foreign newspapers. I saw that reasonable exception could not be taken to that. His remark was prompted, as I pointed out when I spoke recently, by some remarks which Deputy Hickey was making. He wanted to turn the people's attention to the one safeguard they have with regard to supplies and that is their own endeavours at home. That was the whole purport of his remarks. I think I pointed out to Deputy Hickey on that occasion that, if he looked through the report, he would realise that every sentence of the Minister's was punctuated by some remark by the Deputy. Finally, he said "Quit this question of ships and turn to the other" and, because he did that, the whole thing was taken out of its context. The words about damn ships were repeated and sent across the wires, and the whole purport of the Minister's speech was misrepresented.
Now, in the same way I spoke about the position here. When I spoke at Christmas, we were beginning to realise much more fully how quickly a shortage was about to come. I spoke of the fact that the belligerents in blockading each other were blockading us. That was a fact and is a fact. It is the truth. There is no denying the visible effect of it in the shortage of our supplies. That shortage is growing daily and will become graver as time goes on. Now, why should that statement be made the basis of misrepresentation? I carefully avoided imputing motives to either of the belligerents. I do not believe that either of the belligerents was attacking us as such.
They were attacking each other, but we were coming in for some of the blows. That is a fact and I stand by it, and if it was not misrepresented it would do no damage whatever to our national interests. I made it deliberately and carefully, not foolishly. I said what I said in that broadcast carefully and deliberately, and I stand over every word of it as expressing the truth as it was, having in mind all the national interests, but when others take it up and for more or less party purposes make it the basis of an attack, then it assumes quite a different appearance.
And then the answer is suppress it. Is that right?
This debate has so far proceeded without interruptions.
If it is going to be contrary to the general national interests, and if it is going to bring about danger to the State—yes. If there is any other government that is going to be put in here, let them take the responsibility and allow these things to go, but if we want to pass through this time we cannot have it both ways. We must make up our minds about that. Again, I spoke of the attitude of this country. I was speaking to the American people, and I spoke about the attitude of this country for some years past. I referred to the time when I was speaking some 20 odd years ago in America. I wanted to point out to them that our present attitude is no new attitude.
On a point of order. Are the Taoiseach's observations relevant to the motion?
They are relevant inasmuch as they are an answer to statements made by the Deputy in the debate.
I assure the Taoiseach that I do not desire to offend him in any way. I am putting the question to the Chair: "Are they relevant to the motion?" The motion complains of the censorship. When speaking I referred to the Taoiseach's broadcast and said that while the newspapers could comment on it they could not criticise it. I did not deal with the subject matter of the Taoiseach's speech because I did not think it was allowed.
So far the Taoiseach has confined himself to points made by Deputy Dillon in reference to the effect of a certain broadcast to America. To enter into the merits of the case is not my function, but the Taoiseach is replying to some aspects of the Deputy's criticism.
The importance of these matters referring to me were twofold. First of all, there was a suggestion that I was anti-British—let me put it that way. There was the plain suggestion that my broadcast was made because of a certain bias against Britain—that that was the whole meaning of it. In this conflict I have said that the State is neutral. I cannot, in any statement of mine, divorce any personal feelings I may have. When I speak, I am speaking as the head of the Government. My remarks will be taken, and anything that is attributed to me will be taken as representing the attitude of the Government. Now the fact is that this Government is neutral in this war. We are faithfully carrying out the policy of the State in so far as it is humanly possible for us to do it. It is not in the interests of the community that the head of the Government, in circumstances like these, should be represented by anybody, or that an attempt should be made to build up a case to represent him as being biassed, as being animated by hatred or any such motive against one belligerent. It is untrue, to start with, and it is not in the interests of the State. As long as this Government is here, it is not in the interests of the State that that should be done.
I am referring to these two things, to the blockade and also to what was regarded as imperial adventures. On the occasion of the broadcast to America, I pointed out, as I had said there years ago, that the aim of the majority of our people was to be an independent State, and that that meant that we were not going to be involved in any imperial adventures. It is possible, I will admit, to relate that to the present time, to translate and, if one wishes, look at it in that way. If one reads it with bias it is possible to take that statement and say: "Oh, that was referring to the present and passing judgment upon the present issues in this war." It was nothing of the kind.
The whole argument was that our people had long ago determined that, if they were going to live as an independent State, then they were not going to be attached to one empire or to another empire: that their whole purpose was to try to get their independence so that they could lead their own lives in their own way. I wanted to point out, therefore, to those who might be listening to me that the attitude of the State here to-day was quite consistent with the attitude which we had taken up at that time. There was no other purpose whatever in my statement. I do not think any person reading it fairly, without bias, would hold that there was. The whole purpose of it was to show that the State now was neutral, and that that neutrality was consonant with the whole purpose which we have in trying to secure our independence. I take these simply as examples. There is no doubt but that the imputation of bias to the Government at the present time, on one side or the other, is a harm to the State. It is not true.
Hear, hear!
Therefore, the censor is quite right, in my opinion, in preventing people who, wrongly, are trying to impute such bias to the State and to the Government. Now, with regard to some of the other examples. Deputy Dillon had an excellent opportunity here, of which he made the most, to stand as a champion of democratic freedom, democratic right, of Christianity and Christian principles, and so on. I think, however, he should have made himself a little more sure of his facts before he spoke. The Minister for Defence has pointed out that it is not true to say that any statements of the Holy Father were censored. They were not. There was a censoring of a news agency, of a statement in the Osservatore Romano—that, I think, is something of quite a different colour—and what was in it was censored because the things that were referred to there and the rumours and reports had not been allowed previously to be published here; that is, the censor here, in the first instance, on his own initiative, stopped those false rumours and false reports which it was necessary for the Holy Father or for the Osservatore Romano afterwards to deny. The rumours were not published here. They were prevented in the first instance.
They were not published in print.
They did not seem to be published anywhere, because they certainly were new to any people that I spoke to about them. The fact is that when you get those newsagency reports you cannot be sure of what you are getting at the present time. Everybody here knows quite well that propaganda is one of the weapons of modern warfare, and that the news agencies of the various belligerent countries, every one of them, use their power as Press agencies to give a particular complexion to the happenings of the day, to statements and to all the rest of it, and it is right for the censor to view with suspicion statements that come from agencies of that kind. There were other reports about the Holy Father. We remember the last war, and the complexion that it was tried to give during that period to the views of the Holy Father of that day. The same thing is being done at the present time, and the result is that the censor, the moment any reports of that kind come through, stops them. Therefore, he did not feel that it was necessary to put in a denial of reports which had not been allowed to be published here. That is the position in regard to that particular item.
The next thing which has been spoken about is the Vatican Radio.
The Vatican Radio is not official, as far as I know. Broadcasts are to the different places and the different countries with their different circumstances, and a broadcast which, going to one particular people in their circumstances, is right and proper, if taken out and applied to another country in another set of circumstances would not be right and proper. In any case, as the Minister for Defence has pointed out, the Holy Father is not responsible and does not himself take responsibility for the Vatican Radio. I do not know of my own knowledge what was the thing to the censoring of which some objection is taken. I do not know it, but I do know what the facts are with regard to the general position in connection with the radio.
The next thing which was mentioned was the censorship of portion of a pastoral letter of an Irish Bishop. That passage was censored in accordance with the general directions which had already gone out to all the newspapers. The newspapers themselves, if they were to act in accordance with the general instructions which they had received, would have themselves censored it. They do, in fact, censor themselves; they publish only very small sections of pastorals. This particular pastoral was a pastoral on Christian Marriage, and the extract did not seem to indicate very much that that was the purport of it. A certain portion was chosen which included a passage that no newspaper in the country would have been permitted to print. If there are instructions given out in that particular way it is quite right that the censor should act uniformly. The passage that was offending was not the passage exactly that the Deputy read out.
Precisely.
The Deputy read only a portion of it as I have got it anyhow.
I do not wish to interrupt the Taoiseach. I pledge my word to this House that I read the original extract, word for word and in toto, that was submitted to the censor, and with the censor's own hand deleted, and I have it here.
Very well. I find here a passage; there is a paragraph and a sentence——
I take it, of course, that the Taoiseach accepts my word and expresses his regret for having misrepresented me.
The Deputy can make mistakes just as well as the censor can make them. I have got here the statement, and the part that was deleted from the report that had been submitted——
Sir, on a point of order; I have produced to the House a document which I purported to read in toto. The Taoiseach, perhaps, has made a mistake, but he has suggested that I suppressed two sentences. Are there any means by which I can invite the House to peruse the document that I submit and state I was reading?
Not to the knowledge of the Chair.
I am informed there are more papers than one concerned.
I am submitting, Sir, the paragraph that I allege was suppressed in this document here bearing the censor's sign and signature.
Very well. I have got here for my information the passages that were presented by the newspapers and that were deleted.
On a point of order. I have tried to treat the Taoiseach with every courtesy. I can rebuke myself with nothing in that respect. The Taoiseach has alleged that I suppressed two sentences in a paragraph which I purported to read in toto to the House. I quite appreciate that he may have made a mistake in saying that. All I am asking him to do is to accept my word that I read the paragraph in toto as produced to the House. This is what I complained of—nothing else. This is what I complained of, and I read it all.
Very well. I accept that. If the Deputy says that he has read the whole of what he has got, I accept that.
It is not a very generous withdrawal.
The point about it is this: I am not going, in order to put the Deputy right, to put myself wrong. I accept that the Deputy has read the whole of what he has. I am concerned with what was censored, and I say that there was——
On a point of order.
I have heard the Deputy's point of order. The Deputy read out certain paragraphs which he said were censored. He read these paragraphs in full. The Taoiseach is reading paragraphs from the same Pastoral which he states were censored. The two documents may not coincide, and yet both might be correct. Into the merits I am not going to enter. They might have been censored for different papers.
I have got the paragraphs that I am told were censored from some reports which were submitted by the newspapers and I say that, over and above what the Deputy has read, there were other passages, and looking at them I am quite satisfied that the censor would have censored these in any newspaper whatever in accordance with the general instructions which had been sent out.
Read them.
I do not propose to read them.
Why not?
I do not think it is advisable that this controversy should begin here. I think it is very much better that I should state that. An appeal has been made to the Government as well as to the House to see that the censorship is exercised in a more satisfactory way. Looking at one of the examples that I have got, I may say that if I were the censor and I got that paragraph, having seen the general instructions which had been sent out, I would censor that paragraph. After all, we have the responsibility here of trying to save this community from the consequences of this conflict, if we can do so. We have the responsibility and it is in carrying out that responsibility that we are being judged.
There were some other instances with regard to what is called unfair or biased censorship. It was suggested that a British official communiqué was censored and stopped and that a German one was let through. My information is that no official communiqués are stopped. News agency messages—which are quite a different thing—touching the communiqués up from a special angle or a special point of view, are censored. I believe the censors are right in giving the official news from each particular Government, letting that news be given in the Government's own terms, everybody knowing what it is, and everybody discounting it or otherwise according to his or her judgment of the extent to which it is completely and absolutely true. But a news agency giving its own reports is quite a different matter.
There was also a complaint that letters criticising the use of cars by Ministers had been cut out. My information is that letters criticising the use of cars, even though they were not true, had been permitted, but when a spate of anonymous letters came along, knowing that at this particular time the hardships which people were suffering were going to make them very susceptible to lies of that sort, they were censored. There may be a difference of opinion as to whether the censoring of anonymous letters under these circumstances was wise or not, but that is the fact.
Will the Taoiseach deal with the 50/- for wheat letter?
I believe that that refers to the members of some parish council who were sending forward letters of that kind. Again, the safety of this country depends upon our getting our food supplies. If we are going to have irresponsible people at a time like this, when every hour is precious, trying to stop the national effort by suggestions of that sort, then I think that there, too, the censorship staff might naturally feel that it was a part of their duty to see that national damage was not done. I am not going to say, and I have not said it, that any one man or any group of men can operate a censorship to the satisfaction of everybody. It would be absolutely impossible. Every newspaper that is inconvenienced, every correspondent who wants to have something published which, from the point of view of his profession or otherwise, he wants to get in, has a grievance if something is stopped. Then everybody will think, being the judge in his own case, that he is right and that the censor is wrong.
My own belief is that, considering all the difficulties there are in this whole question, we have done reasonably well over the period, and my hope is that we will pass through the whole period without doing greater damage. There is a certain amount of damage always being done. Inevitably it is a choice of evils, and there is always the evil of censorship. I believe that if we pass through this period with no more damage and no more evil resulting from it than what has resulted up to the present, we shall be very lucky indeed. What I am concerned with is that this censorship is being operated, in so far as human fallible beings can do it, without bias and with full understanding, recognising the fact that censorship is an evil which, under present circumstances, has to be borne in order to avoid greater evils. It has been operated in that particular way and it is not being operated with a view either of cloaking, as someone said, any mistakes of the Government, or with a bias either in internal politics or external politics.
The last thing I propose to refer to is the matter raised by Deputy Linehan, when he spoke of the fish. I have not got the actual document that was censored, but I take it that the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures, when he was speaking in the Seanad, summarised its substance. He said that it was represented that for a distance of ten miles the river was filled with dead fish and that the channels were choked with carcases of trout in such numbers that it was possible to walk across the river over the dead fish. I take it that on the face of it that is false. I think at that time the papers were asked to withhold publication until examination could be made by the Department. Later, the Minister speaks of a couple of dozen dead fish having been found. I take it that that was the result of some information he had got from one of the Departments. Why should we stop the publication of that? It is possible that the Minister was influenced in the same way as I would have been influenced, and I would have stopped it, because, in my belief, it was fundamentally false. It was a gross exaggeration; it was damaging to our country in one way or the other; and there was no reason whatever why it should go out.
When I was in the United States on a previous occasion we had a journalist or two in this country—thank God, they were not many—who could always get scare headings in the American papers by telling falsehoods about this country. They were things which were absolutely false, but which 3,000 miles away would not be recognised as being false. There were such journalists, and there was also a journalist here who, on one occasion, with regard to calves, published a disgusting story, a revolting story, of the cruelty which it was suggested was carried on here at the particular time. It suggested that we were a callous, cruel people who had no respect for animals, and so on. That was a lie, a complete and absolute exaggeration. That person did not mind damaging the national credit, and it was a pity that there was not then a censorship to deal with him.
This matter in its exaggeration would not, I admit, be as harmful to the national interest as that, but there is a danger—I am quite willing to admit this—that in trying to safeguard the national interest in this emergency as the censor is bound to do, he may go further than is absolutely necessary and may err rather on the too safe side. That is possible, but it is very much better, in my opinion, that he should err on that side than that he should err on the other. Let him give opportunities for one side and there will be opportunities for the other side. It is much better that we should have a rigid censor who is not as elastic as some of us might wish than that we should have a censor who is elastic and inclined to strain the censorship in the direction of what we would regard as complete freedom. That is one of the prices we shall have to pay for safety during this crisis. We shall have to approach it as a sacrifice which will have to be made, as one of the prices we have to pay. If we approach it in that spirit, I do not think we shall suffer ultimately.
What we should remember is that the possibility of our being here later, with full rights restored to us, may depend upon the extent to which we are prepared to suffer, if you wish, a diminution of our rights at present. I think that is the only way in which we can face it—that we should do this in order that, later, we may have the power of exercising these rights. We should not forget, because we have escaped so far, that we are constantly in danger, and if, despite all our efforts to keep our community out of this conflict, we are forced in one way or another into it, I hope it will be found, as I believe it will be found, that the people who have been most anxious to avoid this conflict will behave themselves not less well than those who at present seem less anxious to avoid a conflict than we are.
Any approach to this motion must take cognisance of the fact that, whatever the viewpoint of individual Deputies may be, the overwhelming anxiety of the people of this country is to maintain a policy of strict neutrality in this conflict, and it is because that viewpoint is so manifest on all sides that I think we do a grave disservice to the cause of neutrality in this country by appearing to meddle in matters which, from the national point of view, might very well be left alone at present. The policy of neutrality has been agreed upon by all Parties, and there have been declarations to that effect by responsible persons in all Parties, though one is inclined to doubt now and again, judging by the utterances of Deputy Dillon, whether, in fact, he has not tired of being neutral and now wants to become very belligerent. At the outset of his speech, Deputy Dillon went needlessly out of his way to proclaim the fact that, while the people of this country were neutral and apparently desired to remain so, he thanked God that his views were somewhat different and that the House and the country knew where he stood in respect of the war being waged in Europe to-day. That may be all right from Deputy Dillon's personal point of view. It may suit Deputy Dillon to get a particular bend on his mind in relation to that war, but other Deputies might have other views. The main consideration surely for responsible Deputies to-day, knowing the country desires to maintain a policy of neutrality, is not, by mischievous speeches, to put the country off the road along which, wisely, I think, it has decided to march in this crisis.
I listened with considerable interest to Deputy Dillon's speech and the fact that was impressed upon me was that threequarters of the speech was devoted to a criticism of one set of belligerents. I think that, from Deputy Dillon's and the national point of view, was a very dangerous and mischievous speech, and one calculated seriously to misrepresent our position before that set of belligerents. I think the one thing we must do in this crisis is to avoid making the mistake of the man at the fair—trailing our coat and daring people to walk upon it. That is a dangerous policy and a highly dangerous doctrine in these times. We have to remember the gigantic resources of the nations at war to-day; we have to remember the magnitude of their military might; and we have to relate it to our ability to protect ourselves in the struggle taking place in Europe to-day.
It is not our business, as probably the smallest independent nation now left in Europe, to get in between these titanic military protagonists and to proceed to express our views as to the way in which we think one set is conducting itself in relation to our philosophy of life. It ought not to be our business in a situation of this kind to express what we think of their attitude one to the other, particularly when that attitude does not concern us as a nation in this portion of the world.
We would be foolish, of course, if we were to believe to-day that both sets of belligerents are not resorting to all the intrigues and all the subtleties of war propaganda. Both sets of belligerents have ministries of propaganda, not ministries of truth, not ministries of fact but ministries of propaganda, expressly created for the purpose of issuing their variety of truth for the purpose of deceiving people, for the purpose of getting sympathy for their point of view, and the sole purpose of these ministries of propaganda is to wheedle people into acceptance of the viewpoint of one set of belligerents or the other. Have we so little to do or do we feel ourselves so armour-plated in our own protection that we must meddle in a matter of that kind? Let the German Ministry of Propaganda put out its propaganda. Let the British Ministry of Propaganda do likewise but do not let us get mixed up in a competition of that kind, because it will not redound to our national credit or help us to preserve a policy of strict neutrality. I think that we shall make a fatal mistake— and we may live to regret it—if we try to fill the role in this conflict of judge on one side or the other. That is not our business and our national welfare demands that, in these times particularly, we should mind our business. When you survey the whole economic position of the country, when you remember its isolated and blockaded position, you cannot but feel that we have sufficient to do to mind our own business without minding the business of any other nation in Europe. There is necessity for great care in the publication of news, particularly news relating to the war situation in Europe. So far as the censor exercises his powers reasonably in that regard, I would not complain of the exercise of them.
Hear, hear.
I do not want our newspapers to be Irish editions of German newspapers.
Hear, hear.
I do not want our Irish newspapers to be Irish editions of British newspapers.
Hear, hear.
I am glad that I have converted Deputy Dillon. What we must aim at is to keep our newspapers Irish. Let them present the facts of Irish news. Let them not be propagandist organs for either the German military viewpoint or the British military viewpoint. Let us cultivate a reasonable frame of mind in that regard. I do not think we are going off the national rail from the point of view of consideration of some types of news in relation to the war——
George Robey's onion.
Although Deputy Dillon worked himself up into a bit of a fury over George Robey's onion, it did not seem to me to matter very much whether the Irish people knew whether he had got an onion at all or not.
That was the Deputy's point.
You should have heard the Deputy expressing himself. In respect of foreign news coming from sources the authenticity of which you cannot trust in existing circumstances —news coming from obviously propagandist institutions—it is necessary to tell our people that possibly these sources of information are contaminated. It is not desirable for us to present news as if a particular event, recorded as happening, did, in fact, happen in the way alleged in the report. On the question of a reasonable censorship of foreign news relating to the war, I, personally, think, independent of what anybody else may think, that it is necessary to preserve a reasonable discretion on the part of the Press Censor. If he errs at all, I should prefer him to err on the side of eliminating highly contentious news items rather than on the other side, so far as these items affect the war situation.
In respect to internal matters, I think the censor should be liberal in his interpretation of his powers and that he should not use these powers for the purpose of shielding the Government from criticism by any citizen or political group in the country. The censor should, certainly, not prevent a Press discussion on important internal political or economic matters. I do not happen to have with me evidence that he has tried to do so. Some reports did reach me to the effect that articles on certain subjects, including one bearing the heading, "Fill the larders"—a very important matter for the people to-day—did, in fact, incur the displeasure of the censor. The censor should not exercise his powers in that regard. In war times, Governments make mistakes. These mistakes may oftentimes be corrected at the outset if public criticism can be directed against them. The censorship powers should not be used to shield a Government from criticism of that kind. I was glad to hear from the Taoiseach that he recognises that the Government has had thrust upon it very great powers under the Emergency Powers Act and that it has a very important trust to maintain liberty of thought, speech and action, conditioned by the national well-being, in the present crisis. I hope that, if this debate has, in some respects, been mischievous, it will help to indicate to the Government and to the Press Censor that, while reasonable censorship of foreign news matter relating to the war will be endorsed generally by this House and by the people, there should be a fair field and no favour in respect of discussion on internal economic and political matters.
It is, I think, common knowledge amongst people who have any experience of administration that policies that once seemed good at the beginning are apt, occasionally, if people do not review the situation from time to time, to drift away from their origins, that instructions that are given may at times be warped by those who have control and must act under the instructions, and unless an opportunity for revision, such as this debate offers, is taken by those with responsibility, they may find themselves very soon far removed, indeed, from what was in contemplation by those who granted the powers of censorship we are discussing here to-night. This debate was offered as an opportunity to the Government to review the position, because we believe the situation has drifted very far from what was in contemplation when we granted to a single-Party Government power which, even in a time of war, is only entrusted to a composite group.
I need not refer to the original debates of 1939. I have them here if my statements are challenged. The standard laid down in these early debates was that censorship was a necessity. We always regarded it as essential and we still regard it as essential. We did ask under what system the censorship was going to be worked and we were told that, mainly, there would have to be a prohibition of items of news that might be of use to one of the two belligerents and detrimental to the other and that, so far as anything else was concerned, the standard was to be the national interest as a whole. We were definitely told in those days that it was not contemplated that there should be any interference with expression of opinion. It was news that was the quarry, not opinion. How far have we moved from that situation? We believe—we have put it on record in the motion—that the censorship is being used "unduly to restrict legitimate free speech and to prevent the natural expression of public opinion." We ask that the censorship be brought back to conform to the ideas we had at that time. Those were ideas that, certainly, would have allowed legitimate expression of free speech and natural expression of public opinion.
Deputy Norton has talked about the price of 50/- for wheat and the letter that was canvassed about the House. We are told that this letter advocating a price of 50/- per barrel for wheat was censored because it might have obstructed the campaign for more food. Are we now to believe, as I understand is the situation, that what that demanded in the way of a fixed and a guaranteed price is going to be given? How far are we from the price of 50/- demanded in that letter? That had to be censored in the national interest.
Deputy Hickey, in a question here before Christmas, asked—and this is an internal matter—how many internees there were in the various internment camps in this country. He was not referring to belligerents who casually landed here, but to our own people. He was given the number, and when the news was flashed to the Press, a censor's note came immediately that the information was not to be published. Deputy Hickey, if he got the information from the papers, might want to complain that there were too many interned, and I might want to complain that there were not enough. Why should both of us not be allowed to express our views on that matter and to have the information on which we could argue?
Meetings are held in the Dublin Mansion House from time to time at which folk, who think they are doing the anti-partition movement some good, speak and they constantly refer to the number of people ruthlessly put into internment by the Northern Government. Every time any phrase like that is used, I understand that there are people who stand up to ask how many the Taoiseach has put in internment and the censor forbids any reference to these interruptions. Why? Does the national interest demand that these people should be allowed to criticise a Government with which we have at least friendly relations, and that we have to suppress the fact that the Taoiseach here is walking exactly the same path, as far as results go, as his vis-a-vis in the North?
I understand that when the question of evacuating children to this country from Great Britain was under consideration a deputation from the Dublin Trades Council went to Government Buildings to meet the Taoiseach and some of his Ministers. They announced that they had a plan; they announced the funds they had at their disposal; that they proposed to take over children from the poorer quarters in England and put them up free; and that they had a scheme on foot. I do not mind that that scheme was turned down. What I do object to is that the Press were forbidden to publish one word about that deputation having gone to Government Buildings and being received by the Taoiseach. Is that necessary in the national interest?
There were other small matters which I will leave that are not so completely attached to conditions in this country. I suppose it is possible, here in this House, in a debate which will, no doubt, be ruthlessly censored tomorrow, for me to state without any fear of contradiction that there had been an engagement between naval forces in the Mediterranean recently. Last night one newspaper had a heading over that, "British Bombers' Part in Naval Victory". The censor struck out the word "victory" and made them substitute the word "battle". What is the sense of that?
There has been recently a seizure of certain ships belonging to two of the Axis Powers as well as to a one-time neutral nation. These ships were seized in America and protests have been lodged by the representatives of the Axis Powers. The Press Association message with regard to that carried the comment: "Mr. Cordell Hull's blunt refusal to consider the protest". Our namby-pamby censor would not let that pass unless the word "blunt" was struck out.
I thought it was some wits who are circulating what I suppose Deputy Norton would call a mischievous rumour to the effect that certain patent medicines had been forbidden the usual advertisement facilities here because of certain tags to the advertisements, but I understand it is true. Some advertisement for a medicine called "Phosferine" carried with it as an incentive to the people on the other side to buy it, that if they took Phosferine they might avoid the siren. That advertisement has to be crushed out of the papers here, not because there is any objection to people taking Phosferine, but because the censor will not let us understand that a thing called a siren is sometimes sounded on the other side. There is another patent medicine which is supposed to be good for the chest, and there was tagged on to an advertisement for that, "War weary people would require this", or "War harassed chests would benefit by a dose of this". Some such phrase as that was used and that was cut out. That has to be suppressed in the national interest.
Without taking sides in this matter, I state that it is common knowledge that in recent months one of the belligerents in this war has lost hundreds of thousands of square miles in Africa and hundreds of thousands of men. They have by degrees yielded up the chief cities of Eritrea and Abyssinia. If any newspaper here takes a Press Association message which contains the words that the Italian forces are on the run, that must be cut out, but the neutral word "retreat" will be allowed. Can anybody here stand over these things?
I stand over the latter one.
The last one, but not over the others?
I stand for that certainly, taking it as a single example.
Taking "naval battle" as opposed to "naval victory"; is that a correct interpretation?
I think it is no harm it all to put it the other way.
As a battle instead of a victory?
Yes, anybody can see for themselves.
Anybody can see for themselves. That succinctly is what we are coming to—what people can see for themselves; you can put the news in such a way that people can draw their own conclusions. The proper label cannot be stuck on. These are minor matters in comparison with the bigger things spoken of to-night. Let me take this important matter of the suppression of an official communiqué which was denied to-night. I have here a statement countering the German propaganda with regard to aircraft losses. The statement is published by the British Air Ministry countering a statement which had already got into our papers about losses. They give for certain periods what they state are their losses. That is suppressed by the censor. Why should that happen? "The British Air Ministry announced last night"—is that official enough?
It is not regarded as an official communiqué.
So that what they announce is not regarded as official?
If the whole of it is taken, the Deputy would not regard it himself as a purely official objective communiqué.
It is an answer, as it states, to a German High Command communiqué which was published.
If the Deputy looks up the statement, he will find that it was issued by the propaganda section of the Air Ministry. That was a special thing dealing with some particular matter.
The German High Command do not label themselves as propagandist. It has been labelled, of course, already in the documentation by the chief of the State—that he believes in propaganda of a lying type and his only attitude with regard to a propaganda of lying is that really the lie should carry force. I am explaining that this is an answer to what was published by the German High Command. We were told that no communiqué was censored. There is one that was censored, and there are others that can be given.
It is a question as to what is understood by a communiqué.
It is a question of what the censor understands by a communiqué. The Taoiseach has gone to great lengths to tell the House what he meant by the broadcast to America. As to what he meant, I find it at times hard to know. He has already put two glosses on it and they are not entirely consistent. Of course that is common form. Why it was censored I do not know, and I do not pause to inquire. I think that many people share my view that it was injudiciously done. That is not his view.
If it was going to damage the country's interest, would it not be the wisest course for any Deputy to pass it over?
That is the trouble. If we pass it over, and if the mistake is repeated, who is at fault? One way of bringing sense into the Taoiseach's head is to criticise him when we think there is a need for it. I do not care whether the broadcast was judicious or not or why it was made. What was criticised here to-night was, that newspaper reports of the debate in the Seanad on the broadcast were censored. In its report of the debate a newspaper thought fit to put up this heading: "Broadcast to America Criticised." The word "criticised" was struck out. The censor insisted that the only heading that could be given to the debate was "Reference to Broadcast to America." Are we to take it that it is not in the national interest that anyone in the Seanad should criticise the Taoiseach's broadcast to America, although it may be proper for a newspaper to give this heading to the debate: "Reference to Broadcast to America"? What is the sense of that? The Taoiseach, to-night, several times repeated utterances about the blockade. All these were in the framework of the national interest. If I am to deduce anything from the utterances that he advanced here to-night it must be this, that he thinks it is in the national interests of this country that we should say that, equally with Germany, Britain is blockading this country.
My statement was that, in blockading each other, they were blockading us.
In any event that can be related to the statements of the Minister for Supplies and the Minister for Finance, that this country is being blockaded by both. Deputy O'Higgins thought fit to write a letter to the Press questioning the use of that term "blockade" in regard to what is happening as between this country and Great Britain. In the course of that letter he says:
"A blockade means the prevention of supplies reaching a country by the use of troops and armaments. Last summer Germany informed us that we were within the blockade zone, and that shipping to and from our shores would be sunk by her forces unless such shipping complied with conditions which were considered unacceptable. Since then she has been blockading us."
It has been definitely stated that Germany considers she is not offending against the canons of international law in blockading this country. Deputy O'Higgins, in the course of his letter, referred to our imports from Britain in the year 1940, and went on to give percentages with regard to specific goods brought into the country. He then asked if we were to believe, in view of that, that she was blockading us. He then put this rather pertinent query:
"Government Ministers state that Britain is blockading us. The Vice-President of the Federation of Irish Industries, who is associated with many industries, states that it is not so. Government Ministers state that Great Britain is blockading us. The Secretary of the Federation of Irish Industries, who is a Deputy in the Government Party, states that it is not so."
In the national interests that letter was suppressed. Apparently, it is in the national interests for Government representatives to state that Britain is blockading this country, but when Deputy O'Higgins writes to the Press and tries to get an explanation of the matter saying that: "it is very much in the public interest that the people of this country should get some accurate and truthful information.... on such a vital matter," the same public interest demands that his letter, requesting clarification of the subject, should be suppressed. Is that holding the scales evenly, and is that permitting the free expression of public opinion in the country?
I understand that Deputy Dillon referred to-night to the suppression of portion of the pastoral of the Bishop of Achonry, and also to the suppression of an item of news that came from the Vatican Radio which said:—
"Religious houses have been closed all over Germany often with no pretext at all, and these houses are not returned to their proper owners. Recruiting of Christians is made difficult and religious instruction is almost entirely absent in the schools."
That was suppressed. What did the Bishop of Achonry say? The Taoiseach, if he wishes, can give me the full quotation. But this, at least, was suppressed:—
"We know what the Poles are suffering and we know how the dictator has treated the Church in Germany. Can we look with indifference on God dethroned from His rightful place in the Universe? Can Catholics view with easy minds the possibility of a victory which would give brute force the power to control Europe and decide the fate of small nations?"
That was suppressed. Let us understand that situation in this Catholic country. That was portion of a Bishop's Pastoral issued at a very solemn time, the opening of Lent; a time when it has long been the habit of the Bishops of this country to address their flocks in their different dioceses.
Interruptions.
Deputies must not interrupt.
The interruptions from those Deputies will enable them to say to their constituents that they spoke in the House.
They are as much entitled to speak as the Deputy.
What I complain of is that they are not allowed to speak often enough.
They are not so clever as the Deputy.
The Deputy must be allowed to proceed.
Allow the war mongers to proceed.
Let me take that as the mentality of the Government Benches.
The mentality of yourself.
When one talks of the suppression of a Bishop's pastoral, one is dubbed a war monger.
No. You were always one, but had not the courage to say so.
This pastoral was issued at a very solemn time, when the Bishops address their flocks and speak to them on matters that they feel it their bounden duty to write about. The Bishop of Achonry decided that he would speak about the dethronement of God from His natural place in the Universe and went on to refer to the possibility of a victory for brute force. That is the spirit in Germany. Early in the system that now holds there a valiant Cardinal indicated that he thought it was the right of the clergy in Germany to inform public opinion and even to educate the politicians of that country. That was done with concentration camps in the offing. That was the spirit shown by the Cardinal of Munich who continued to write his pastorals. Even with people howling outside his palace, he persisted in writing his pastorals in 1933. Things were done before the war and were permitted in that country which have not been equalled since in some countries even in stress of war. In any event, he proceeded and persisted in that. That part of the struggle in Germany calls almost for admiration, for in Germany the resistance of certain people with certain points of view was a resistance put up even against the threat of concentration camps and of other terrors. In peace and with no threat of anything in the nature of complete and entire aggression upon us—if that pastoral were published here — we decided that that statement to the members of his flock made by a Bishop of the Church should not be allowed publication in the Press. Why?
It was not a matter for his flock at all.
Theologian!
Let Deputy O'Rourke squirm now.
That is the thought that comes to the aid of the censor at this particular point: it was no matter for the Bishop to address his flock about it; it is not for any clergyman to speak of persecution, on account of Church matters, going on in any country.
We had persecution here for a long time.
Of course we had.
And our Bishops spoke then.
And it was not spoken in divers tongues.
I would like to see the Taoiseach at the end of his statement say that, if you allow one statement you will have contradictory statements, but that it would be far better to have a clash of opinions.
I do not think that the clash of opinion here is altogether an advantage.
If the Taoiseach intends to criticise his own followers for their interruptions, I have no objection, but if he is trying to be schoolmasterly with me, I do resent it.
Others may resent some of the Deputy's statements.
Surely, the censorship is not to invade this House? I take it that there is not to be a closure on debate.
And yet, wisdom should be exercised.
Apart from that, the wisdom is the wisdom that strikes out that passage in the Bishop's Pastoral.
As one of other passages.
It is the wisdom that prevents such matters circulating here. I do not know what moral standpoint the people of this country may have in the future or what standard we are to impose on our folk. It would be very hard to get back to an ordinary appreciation of Bishops' duties and rights if people remember that a Bishop, when he had made up his mind on what was happening, was forbidden to announce his mind on that matter. We are told that the national interest might be weakened if people were allowed to comment here on how the belligerent forces are behaving. That may be so, but is it not something that people have to think about, something that may develop in the future?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a speech made last September or October at a Local Security Force meeting, told the people who were at that meeting that, when this war was over, this country might find itself without a friend. That was a serious statement from him. What had occurred about September to warrant that statement being made by him, I do not know. The Minister had a manuscript and gave it to the Press and naturally the Press presumed that what a Minister said would be allowed to pass the censorship, and they published that statement of his and it got into some of the morning papers. But, by the time the evening had come, the censor took the matter up and, although the Minister's speech appeared, that particular phrase was excised and the censor—his own colleague, or the people who act under him—thought fit to prevent the Minister for Industry and Commerce telling the people of this country that when the war was over we might find ourselves without a friend. If a Minister thinks fit to say that, why does another Minister think fit to prevent publication of it?
Quite recently here, the Minister for Supplies in a debate told people he was addressing that circumstances might change and that policy must be adapted to circumstances and:—
"On the facts as we know them now the policy of strict neutrality in this conflict is in our own best interests".
I take that to be following somewhat in the lines of the Minister for Industry and Commerce—that a period of stress would come after the war. One may tell us that, for some reason, because of our attitude to the struggle, we may find ourselves without a friend when the war is over. The Minister for Supplies told us that circumstances may change and that policy must be adapted to circumstances. How are the people of the country to find out that circumstances are changing, if they cannot get the news through the Press? The Minister apparently feels that it may be necessary to depart from this attitude of strict neutrality—not at the time he was speaking, of course —but at a later date when some change in the situation may make it necessary and when policy may have to be adapted to the changed circumstances. Who is to know of the changing circumstances? Must it again be that to a single Party Government all the knowledge must be given and they will withhold the facts which show a change of circumstances and show how necessary it is to adapt policy accordingly? Will it happen, at some time in the future, that this country may have to make a sudden change and the only people who will know the reason will be the people who are now preventing whatever facts are in those Ministers' minds being made known to the people?
I feel that it is quite possible to have censorship here. We all voted for it. Nobody wishes to rush this country either headlong, or by sidestep or incautiously or deliberately into war, but it is possible, we think, to have free speech here and we do think that it is necessary to have a healthy growth of public opinion about the changing circumstances. If the Press are not given some better play than they are given at the moment, we will not have the information upon which future policy will have to be determined. It is said that no great change ever has been brought about except in circumstances such as this—you must have devotion to a great cause, you must have an unfaltering faith that whatever is right in the end will prevail. Do the people get enough information, through the operation of the Press censorship at this moment, to enable them to make up their minds that there is a cause which requires their aid and that there is something which needs their unfaltering faith? This is a question of deciding where justice lies and whether might or right is going to prevail.
Deputy Norton wishes us to close our ears to what is happening outside. He is afraid that incautious allowance by the censorship of news here might drag the belligerents' wrath upon us. That was referred to recently by President Roosevelt. He talked of those who asked him not to frighten them by telling facts, and gave a warning that people cannot escape danger by curling into bed and pulling the clothes over them.
He is 3,500 miles away.
I am not forgetting that at all. I know that the situation is entirely different, but the situation of the people who think they will avoid danger by closing their eyes to the circumstances around them is the same whether they are 3,000 miles away from a country or close beside it. I am only speaking of the getting of information.
I am as strong as anybody for preventing imprudent utterances by Pressmen or for suppressing the wildest efforts of the propagandist.
In this debate we have only given a few examples of censorship of the many that can be given. I think, when it comes to preventing people hearing statements made by their own clergy, that fact alone ought to make the Government stand back and look at this thing anew and see whether, as I said at the beginning, they have not strayed somewhat far away from the programme and the policy they had and which they presented to this House when we gave these serious powers of censorship into their hands.
The debate that has taken place leaves little to be said from our side, for I think we made a case that the Taoiseach himself felt could not be answered. A large part of the Taoiseach's speech was devoted to a defence of the text of his broadcast to America. He protested that it was untrue to represent that speech as being anti-British on the one hand or anti-Axis on the other, and that it was unfair to suggest that he was anti- one or anti- the other. I would remind the Taoiseach that I introduced my remarks to-night by saying that that was none of my purpose and that, so far as I knew, it would be an injustice to describe him or his colleagues as being anti- one side more than the other. I did say, and I do not think it was any excess, over and above what discussion would impose, that I considered his reference to imperial adventures as tactless in the last degree. Surely that is not calculated to wreck this nation and, as Deputy McGilligan has emphasised, leaving aside altogether the merits of what the Taoiseach said, is it desirable, in this day and age, that the newspapers of this country should be forbidden to publish the statement that a free citizen, never mind a chosen Senator, criticised, not the Taoiseach's person, but the text of what he said? I think the Taoiseach on reflection is as much abashed as we are by the discovery of the use of censorship powers that was made in that case.
I do not want to go down through all the cases I have already quoted but I venture to say this, that in respect of each one of them—and they were not chosen cases; they were the run of the mill as I could get them— every word the Taoiseach spoke in defence of the action taken by the censor's office was special pleading, and he knew it was special pleading. If you could get him in the secrecy of his own chamber there was scarcely a single case brought under the attention of Dáil Eireann to-day of which the Taoiseach would not have said, "If I had the chance to see that before it was done, it would not have been done". I am not pretending that it is not easy to be wise after the event. I am not pretending that every one of those cases would have been picked up by myself or any of my colleagues if we had to look at it from the other side of the event.
Have you not been——
Wait a moment. Hold your horses now. What I am saying is this: It would be irresponsible on my part in respect of a motion of this kind to bring forward a number of the trivia that I brought before the House if I did not make the case, "Here is nothing serious in itself but the accumulation of these things suggests a trend which can be corrected now but which, if allowed to develop unchecked, may lead us into very serious difficulties". Surely that is the right way to approach this problem instead of saying, "We will wait until the situation becomes so intolerable that we would be prepared to fight rather than submit another hour". The thing is to come before the legislature in good time and say, "There is the accumulation of evidence; let reasonable men read as they run, and see where that is leading". It is obvious the trend is wrong. Check it now and let us get back on to lines on which all of us, in a greater or lesser degree, will be prepared to agree.
Nobody is asking in this House that censorship should be abolished.
Nobody is suggesting that the same degree of freedom can reasonably be expected in time of national crisis such as we are passing through as we may legitimately demand in time of peace. All we are pressing on our Government to-night is this: If you want to get a free people to concur in this abridgement of their liberty you have got to bring them with you because the alternative is to convert them into a slave people. You cannot bring them with you if you use the powers with which they trust you in such a way as to shatter their trust. And remember this—this Government above all Governments in Europe, I think, has received a measure of cooperation from the common people down through the country whenever they trusted them, whenever they said, "It all depends on you; if you are prepared to row in with us we can pull it off and if you want to block us you can make our task impossible." I do not say you can go that far with censorship but I think you ought to say to the people, it must be 75 per cent. common sense and 25 per cent. coercion. Free speech must be limited by that equation—75 per cent. of your own common sense and 25 per cent. of coercion which no Government would claim the right to exercise but for the difficult times through which we are passing.
I am not pretending that there are not difficulties. Of course, there are difficulties but I say that many of the cases that we set out here to-day are gravely blameworthy. Some of them are as clearly mistakes as the two pictures of the Vittorio Veneto. If Michael the Archangel were the censor such errors would occur. But when we take a whole lot of minor incidents together and see the accumulation and then when you link them up with clear instances of the gravest possible remissness such as were, in my judgment, the censoring of the Vatican and the Osservatore Romano, of the Bishop's Pastoral, of the statement that the Taoiseach's broadcast was criticised, of the official communiqué from Great Britain correcting the communiqué that had been issued by Germany, then I say, taking these things altogether, we are entitled to say there is an obligation upon you as trustees to satisfy those who trusted you that the job is being done rightly.
The stewardship to date has not been good. Let us have no quarrel about it, but let the Party Government in office in this country come half way to the other representatives of the people and say, "We know that we are exercising powers over you, the minority, that are repugnant to free men and distasteful to a democratic Government. We did our best, and if we failed to satisfy you that we have done as you think is fair, being reasonable men, then we are prepared to give you the opportunity that you ask for to supervise the general administration of this restriction of your liberties." Now, listen. I do not think the Government is obliged to get from us a testimony of perfection. They are entitled to say that minor errors have occurred. It is only when such a case is made as was made by Deputy McGilligan, myself, and other Deputies to-night, that a claim can be made to come half way to meet them. I am indebted to a student of Constitutional history for a reference to what President Lincoln once said. President Lincoln said that for democracies for free people it was hard enough to have a Government strong enough to protect them in times of crisis that would not be too strong for the survival of their liberties in times of peace. That is a wise saying, and that is the dilemma of every democracy and every assembly of free men in the world. I do not think the Government of this country have any reason to complain that the minorities in this country have under-estimated their difficulties. Let there be censorship. We do not claim that there should not be. Let there be prohibition of acrimonious language in respect of foreign statesmen. Let there be prohibition of irresponsible utterances which could be reasonably availed of for the purpose of aggression against this State, but let us, in our desire to avoid those things, forbear from compelling our people to imply assent to things for which our people will never stand.
Statesmen of foreign countries are entitled to demand immunity from insult from citizens of this State, and the Government of this State is entitled to compel recognition of that demand. But no statesman, in this State or outside it, is entitled to demand that the Irish people shall be coerced, in order to gratify that man's will, to imply assent to doctrines that are detestable and obnoxious to them. There is a middle course. There is the course dictated by reason, and no one here will quarrel with a Government that even leans a little backward to meet pressures brought to bear upon it, from abroad.
There should be a Rubicon, however, upon which the Government, as the trustees of the rights and liberties of our people, will stand. There should be a place at which our Government will say: "Freedom of expression, and liberty, are the things we live for, and if we cannot have them we would sooner die."
I do not believe that the danger of a challenge being thrown down to us is material. In this day and age no one is going to quarrel with us about what we say, provided that a reasonable discretion, such as that mentioned by Deputy McGilligan and myself, is exercised. I do not believe there is any serious difficulty in adjusting the requirements of reasonable public men on all sides in this country, but I do say now that censorship has travelled along lines in this country which are heading for disaster; that censorship has reached a stage in this country when the facts and information, which our people are entitled to have given them in order to make up their minds reasonably and honestly on the issues that confront the State, are being withheld; and lastly I say this: Governments of free people must carry their people with them. If there is withheld from our people, as Deputy McGilligan warned this House, the facts on which their Government from time to time must plan their policy, a day may dawn in which our Government and all our public men will play the bitter rôle of Cassandra amongst our own people and, seeing clearly where the interest of our country lies, discover that by the deception, to which we were party, of our own people, we are unable to lead them in the right direction but must abandon them to the destruction that deception wreaks upon them.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 32; Níl, 56.
Tá
- Bennett, George C.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, Seán.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hannigan, Joseph.
- Hughes, James.
- Keating, John.
- Linehan, Timothy.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Donovan, Timothy J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
Níl
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Fred Hugh.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Keane, John J.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Francis.
- McCann, John.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Moran, Michael.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Smith and S. Brady.
Motion declared lost.