Censorship of Publications Bill, 1928—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That this Bill be now read a Second Time.'

Sir John Keane

It has been said by some people of consequence that so popular is this measure in the country, and so influential are the forces behind it, that anybody who has the temerity to oppose it in principle will no longer be acceptable in public life. I am sure that is not the point of view that will appeal to this House. I am sure this House is anxious to hear the views, even of a minority, and in what I have to say I do not claim to represent more than a minority, but I claim to speak on behalf of a minority who contribute in no small measure to the amenities of this State, to its literature and to its art—who are not only the producers of literature and art, but are also patrons in a measure out of all proportion to their numbers of art and literature which, speaking generally, you might say are not patronised at all by the large masses. Personally I am sure the Seanad will accept the view that we should put truth above all, and where we feel a thing seriously that we should say it strongly, even if it may be unacceptable to many in public life whose opinions we value.

I am sure that if I say things to-day that certain members of this House may even resent, I would claim that at least I do not set down "aught in malice."

This Bill, if I may say so, represents a new departure in what I may call the process of hygiene. Hitherto we have been concerned mainly with hygiene in the physical world: the cleaning of milk, the cleaning of butter, of farmsteads, and so on— the hygiene to which you can apply certain fixed rules, and the hygiene into which the science of organic chemistry can enter. I need hardly say that we are now embarking on a new and a very different sphere. We are embarking on an attempt by the State into the region of the hygiene of the mind. I might say that this is no new problem. It is an age-long problem. There are no data in this matter that were not present to the philosophers of old, and if we claim to have discovered any new materials or any new method by which to carry out this process, which we all wish for, of mental betterment, then we shall have achieved a wonderful victory over all past history in this new State of ours.

Of course I need hardly say that the forces against us are exceedingly elusive and subtle. We are up against the whole mystery of human personality, with its reactions and repressions, and its inhibitions. We are up against, in these days, almost the only remaining stronghold of independence, the one domain in which not even the predatory politician can exert much power or regulate to any certain extent. We are up against the mysterious something which we all feel; and what composes man can man destroy? So that I think the House will agree with me that this is a totally different matter, and that you cannot apply the same positive rules which you could apply to hygiene in the physical world. I would now further proceed to say that the ground for assuming that this Bill has for its purpose mental repression is exceedingly well chosen. It is no pleasant task for anyone to stand up in this House and be liable to be accused of being a champion of indecency or of wishing to see that literature of a pornographic or undesirable kind should be allowed to circulate without the restraint of the law. Of course, that is a position that I do not for a moment champion. I have no doubt that many will say and honestly believe that I am standing up here to champion the indecent under the pretext of liberty, but I claim to have the support of a number of people who are just as noble in their purpose and as pure in their minds as those who are behind this Bill. I would even go so far as to say that the intelligent section of the community, those who are capable of appreciating the arguments for and against, are about equally divided. There is a large mass of the people, sixty to seventy per cent., who read so little that they are certainly indifferent as to the class of literature that may be affected by this measure.

I was very much interested in the Minister's speech yesterday and I wondered whether he was simulating or was insincere. But, when I thought further I remembered that he was a lawyer, and a common law lawyer at that, and that naturally he knew how to address a body of this kind which rather represents the ordinary jury type of mind. The Minister took the line—he will excuse me if my legal method is not quite apt—de minimis non curat lex, saying to the House that all we intend to do is to exclude books that are entirely beyond the border line. One might almost have thought that the Minister was introducing a Gas and Water Bill so little did he make of the implications and hidden dangers that lurk behind this measure. He drew what I suggest to say was a totally imaginary picture of what the censors would do. As far as I can understand it, when the censors are set up they will naturally be in the position of a quasi judicial body. They will form their opinions on their own judgment, and they will in no way be bound by what the Minister said here yesterday or in the Dáil as to what he thinks they should do. I believe I am right in saying that the Minister will have the power to veto their recommendations, but the present Minister will not always be the Minister. I ask the House to believe that the totally innocent picture that the Minister drew of the possible activities of this Board may not be accomplished in reality.

The whole of the Minister's argument rather reminded me of the form of argument that is always uppermost at general elections. We see it going on in England now. The Socialists are trying to persuade the Conservatives that there is nothing in their policy, that their methods are better and that property is more sacred to them than to anyone else. The Conservatives are trying to persuade the Socialists that they are the real Socialists, that theirs is the true progressive Party, the Party that combines progress with security. What the Liberals are out to do I do not claim to know, except that they are trying to persuade the people generally that the other Parties are no good. That was the impression that I got from the Minister's speech, that he was trying all along to belittle the gravity of the Bill, and wisely so. As a lawyer he naturally wished to make the best of his case.

I was also rather struck by the type of argument that the Minister used in introducing this measure in the Dáil. I admit it was a commonsense argument, perhaps, if you were to have no regard to principles. He said "I feel right because I am between two extremes. I am in the middle of the road." On that analogy it is attractive to examine this. Where is the middle of the road between the Christian and atheist? Where is the middle of the road between plus and minus? I suggest that the middle of the road as regards this Bill is in the same vacuous region. That kind of argument may do very well for the hustings, but it is not an argument that should be seriously applied to a measure which contains intrinsic principles which should be regarded irrespective of what factions are ranged on either side, and which should be divorced altogether from the democratic doctrine of counting heads irrespective of their contents.

I now come to the censors' task. It has been put to the House by the Minister that it will be quite easy for the censors to say whether a book is undesirable for the young or not. We cannot confine it to the young although the Minister did say that the class of book that people over forty could read was the class of book that people under 20 years could not read. Recently I attended a lecture at the National Gallery in London. It was given by an official lecturer who, no doubt, spoke with a sense of the full gravity of his words. He referred in terms of praise to a certain book. The book that he mentioned was a book called "Point and Counter-Point," by Aldous Huxley. Shortly afterwards, in London, I was in a well-known library. I talked to the librarian about the very matter of this Bill, trying to find out what was the general point of view of people who have to know what readers' tastes are and, without any suggestion on my part, he said: "A lady was in here the other day, a woman of the world and a person of good taste. She referred to that book and said it was one of the most unpleasant books she had read for some time. It was unpleasant on sex grounds." That is the sort of dilemma that will present itself to the Board of Censors. Is there not a great danger that a work of that kind, whatever individually one may think of it, a work of undoubtedly great merit being banned and withheld from people who may wish to read it?

Then again take fashion. Morality is not exempt from the influence of fashion any more than any other phase of life. I do not say that immorality is ever right, but words suggestive of immorality take very different forms. In the Middle Ages they were coarse and gross. Now they are subtle and suggestive, and words that may appear to the modern generation unpleasant would do no harm, whereas words that are subtle and suggestive might do a great deal of harm. It is quite impossible for any Board of Censors to keep in touch with, or to appreciate, the full effects of any given expression on these sex matters on the young mind.

Now is not sex the theme of 90 per cent. of modern literature and modern fiction? Does it not enter even largely into modern biography? In a noted work published recently dealing with Elizabeth and Essex the sex suggestion or the sex idea obtrudes very forcibly. Is it conceivable that if you were to ban even 10 per cent. of the worst of modern fiction you would not get sex still remaining in literature in a form that would do infinite harm to those who are susceptible, and who had no other armour to protect them against these insidious doctrines? If you are going to make this prohibition in the least effective, you will have to do as I notice certain public institutions in this country have already done—have wholesale burnings. That would apply to the works of Tolstoy, Anatole France, Balzac, and a host of others, even Shakespeare if you like, and Holy Writ, because portions of it would have to go if you are going in any way to make the thing effective. I should like the Minister to say where the line is going to be drawn. The Minister smiles when I mention extremes, but there are passages in Holy Writ which, I suggest, are very objectionable from a sex point of view, and he knows that as well as I do.

The ordinary public in this matter are pictured as thirsting, as one Deputy in the Dáil said, for moral garbage. I do not for a moment believe that people are thirsting for moral garbage any more than for physical garbage. No one wants garbage in the way of food, and I do not believe that people want to imbibe garbage in the way of ideas. In my opinion, this restriction dealing with the two or three per cent. of books that are undoubtedly over the line, or near the line, will not frustrate anybody except perhaps the pornographer, and nobody will get to know about these books except the person who is out seeking for pornographic literature. I am glad to see that the definition of the word "indecent" has been made a little more reasonable than it was when the Bill was originally introduced. I still fail to see what exactly is meant or implied by the phrase "other similar way to corrupt or deprave." Why picture sex immorality and unnatural vice as corrupting and degrading and not picture a lot of other forces as degrading such as drugs, drinking, etc.? I do not know whether other forms of sin of a sex character could not be brought within that definition.

I notice that a great claim is made by certain people with regard to a section that has been asserted to the effect that the Board may have regard to certain factors such as the price of the book, the language in which it is written and the circulation that it is likely to obtain. I can see nothing in that section that was not already in the Bill. The Board will have the right to judge the work as a whole and to judge its general tendency. These were factors that were always present. I regard these factors as nothing but, in effect, a piece of window-dressing. I am much more concerned with certain factors that are not mentioned. I would direct the close and particular attention of the House to this, that there are a number of books which in the eyes of many combine two bad elements, one sex and the other may be anything you like. A book may be a mixture of sex doctrine unacceptable to the minority. I can see books that may be a mixture of sex and imperialism. A book might also combine sex and economic heresy, and sex and Gaelic intensification. Is there not an obvious and great danger there? If the Board are strongly biased with a Gaelic, doctrinal or any bias that you like— of course, it has to be remembered that the members of the Board are only human—then the Board can exert that bias under the camouflage of sex which may, in practice, afford ample justification for a prohibition. I hope that the Minister will accept an amendment to the effect that there will be a distinct direction to the Board to have no regard to any objectionable matter which is not comprised within the complaint. When the time comes I hope to put an amendment to that effect into intelligible form. After all these censors will be mere men. They may even be politicians. They will be accessible and even amenable to human influences. They can be removed, I think, by the Minister. They are to be changed every three years and they are not to have the security of judges. You are proposing to give them, under this Bill, what I consider to be a very dangerous power in the direction that I have suggested.

I do not see anything in the Bill about the payment of salaries to the members of the Censorship Board, though that is a minor point which may arise later. If this question of censorship stood alone and was merely an isolated act, I do not think any of us would mind. We would run great risks to secure purity of mind. It would not matter perhaps if, say, only twenty per cent. of doubtful literature was to be banned and if the thing began and ended there. Is literature not only the sole but is it the main debasing source? I suggest not. I suggest that the appeal to the eye is infinitely more suggestive than the appeal to the mind, and that the appeal to physical contact is even more suggestive than the appeal either to the eye or to the mind.

If we want to tackle this question in an honest, straightforward spirit, let us deal with modern dancing. You can deal with that more effectively. If you were to lay down a regulation that there were to be no dances but round dances, then even the most untutored Civic Guard could deal with a matter of that kind. I think that to some people modern dancing is most suggestive. There again you can introduce physical standards. The tape measure, of which there can be no doubt, would come into operation. You can prescribe that dresses should not be higher from the ground than a certain length, and that arms shall always be covered. If you are really going to tackle the question of morality, that is the way you should deal with it, ridiculous as it may appear, and it would have more effect than dealing with literature.

If, as people suggest, the Minister really desired to champion the cause of morality, I see great danger in this Bill. It will only show how impotent it is to prohibit this 3 or 4 per cent. of objectionable literature. It will lead to a demand for further measures, and, therefore, this Bill cannot be judged as an isolated act, however effective it may be as an isolated act. Then what about the writers? I imagine a writer of any influence is a writer who writes with his whole being, a writer who cannot help writing—a writer who must write of the world as he finds it with all his faculties, and he must deal with realism as he sees it, with squalor as he sees it, and other things as he finds them. To place the writer under the fear of the influence of the censor is to utterly destroy the natural development of his powers, and we know that literary talent is one of the outstanding merits of many Irishmen. I cannot conceive that that would continue to operate in any country where repressions of the kind suggested in this Bill are allowed to prevail. Can we not apply a fair test to this censorship by a retrospective examination? Supposing in any age you had an average Board of Censors in operation composed of seven or eight or nine sensible men of the world, probably men of no great literary talent, just ordinary plain men who like a game of golf and creature comforts, who are good citizens, but probably unimaginative, and who possess no kindling fire of genius—Zola's works would never have seen the light of day had they been subject to the censorship of such a Board. I think Bernard Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" was banned by the censor, but I believe we can now see it in Dublin. With a Board of Censors I wonder would " Mrs. Warren's Profession" have escaped the ban of censorship? I believe there was a great outcry when Hardy wrote "Tess."

It is more than likely that if you have a Board of Censors impelled by mercurial public opinion there is great danger you may under an impulse ban works which may afterwards be accepted by posterity as classics. I was given a book which I was told to read in view of the discussion on this Bill. It is an Irish translation of "The Midnight Court." I imagine that if the Censorship Board were in existence "The Midnight Court" would come under its ban very quickly. That is a work, I am told, of Gaelic realism, and I think it is extraordinarily well translated, although it was translated by a friend of mine. I should like to know what the fate of a book like that would be? I can see some people wishing that it should enter into the shadows of oblivion. I should like the Minister to tell us definitely whether the provisions of this Bill are going to be retrospective in their entirety or only for a limited time. Are we going to go back to the 17th and 18th century— say to Dean Swift? As the Minister knows, some of Dean Swift's writings were totally unfit for the young, but they are not the type that would incite to modern immorality. They are really coarse. I want to know is there a danger that anybody can lay a complaint about Dean Swift's books, for instance, and that they may be prohibited, and that we shall have to ransack our libraries for these books and consign them to the flames? Are we to ransack our libraries for Balzac's works and consign them to the flames? These are points we would like the Minister to deal with, and they are real dangers.

This Bill is not a milk-and-water proposition, as suggested by the Minister in his opening remarks yesterday. We all know the effect of the free advertisement that will be given to prohibited books. The names of these books will have to be announced. Even if you do it only in the "Official Gazette," people will read the "Official Gazette" who never read it before to find out what these books are, and in my opinion, you will have a clandestine traffic in these works. I was talking to a librarian of great eminence who controls the largest of the private-public libraries, you might say, in London. He said: "I know young girls in good society who are to-day reading `The Well of Loneliness' and who would never have heard of it but for the publicity given to it by prohibition." I have heard that 60,000 copies of "The Well of Loneliness" have been published in France. They do not all remain in France; they dribble through. A clandestine infiltration of works follows from the free advertisement, and people will read the prohibited works not because they are pornographic but simply because they are curious and are allured by the charm of the forbidden. I suggest there is a real danger in this matter. "The Well of Loneliness" was published at 15/- a copy and what number of people are going to buy a book at 15/-? I have also read, and I can give the reference to the Minister if he wishes. Where one person made an income of £20 by hiring out "The Well of Loneliness" to be read at half-a-crown by each person.

We have some examples of what is likely to happen in this matter in Boston. I am told that Boston is the greatest blessing American booksellers ever had. You are a made man once you get your book on the black list in Boston. They all try to get their books on the black list of Boston, for once they are placed on that list they become the best sellers in all the other States of America. This is a real danger— that the banning of works by the Board of Censors will be giving them a free advertisement. Of course, the fact that this free advertisement exists is an encouragement to a class of prurient writers. I think there are very few people who set out deliberately to write nasty books. Some people with a nasty trait in their minds may have what, for want of a better word, let us call genius, and they feel they must tell their message as a whole. I am afraid that the effect of the censorship would be that you would get people almost deliberately exploiting pornographic matter in order that the books may enter the region of the forbidden and be sought by many who would never otherwise have heard of them. I have dealt mainly with books because I think the real danger in the Bill is with regard to books.

I have very little to say about newspapers, except that I think it is perfectly ridiculous to draw the line between the degrees of crime that a newspaper may publish. There is an extraordinary section in the Bill. It says if the Board consider that an undue space has been devoted to crime the paper may be prohibited. I do not attach much importance to that, but I think it is absurd and dangerously vague. With this ban, I hope the attempt to dethrone sex from leaded type will apply to home publications as well as to those imported, because, in spite of the white sheet in which some people would have us stand, I know that some of the publications circulated in this city are as bad as, if not worse than, the average Sunday gutter Press. The Minister may say: "What do you want to do? You do not mean to say there is to be no control whatever over indecent matter—indecent pictures and indecent books?" I say, no; I would not go as far as that, but I say that the best way of dealing with the problem is by magisterial methods. A magistrate or a judge who is dealing every day with evidence is best competent to decide whether those matters are on the borderline or not, but there is a great danger in setting up a body of men who would be directing their attention definitely to how to probe out, how to create an unconscious bias in their minds—a kind of moral ferrets for dealing with evil literature. There is a rough and ready way of dealing with the matter. Only books that are utterly pornographic in their purpose could wisely be excluded.

I come now to a matter which I approach with a very considerable sense of responsibility. We can only accept our responsibilities in this House by doing what we conceive to be our duty. On the question of birth control, I conceive there are two grounds for birth control. There are the moral or religious, and the political and military. I think that they both probably operated in the past. Of course, the moral and religious motive operates naturally very strongly in the present. I have, I need hardly say, every respect for any Church that makes this thing absolutely taboo. It is. I know, an absolute doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church, and I accord the utmost respect to that point of view. I do not wish in anything I say to challenge the right and the total correctness of that point of view within that Church, but I do not suggest that that is not the only point of view. I know perfectly well that on the general subject you might say all the Churches are in agreement, but certain Churches go further than others. The last Archbishop of Canterbury wrote an introduction to a book on this subject to show that, with very guarded qualifications, he considers there are occasions when birth control can become a Christian practice. After all, he speaks for a great Church, he states:

There are certain women who, for medical reasons, should be prevented from bearing children.

There are couples with undesirable inheritance who rightly decline to bear children and who should follow medical advice as to the means of prevention.

There are many women of the poorer classes in whom childbearing is sometimes the last straw in the circumstances, all of which tend to destroy health and vitality. Such conditions will only be truly remedied by social reforms, but where the health of the mother is impaired by too frequent pregnancies it is the duty of her medical adviser, whether in private or at hospital, to safeguard her health.

I do not wish to labour this matter, except to say that certain people who are fully Christian, who are fully high-minded, and who have a sense of social duty, do claim that there are cases where the use of contraceptives is legitimate. There are cases governed by material necessity, disease and insanity. Well, we all admit that the noblest course is abstention. There are circumstances under which the poor live that make that practice little more than an ideal, and if they are not allowed to know something about contraceptives they may be driven either into infidelity or they may imperil the lives and health of their wives. I know it is not a pleasant subject. I am afraid things have got so far, and that the knowledge among all classes is so widespread that we run a great risk that those who will wrongly use it know and those who would legitimately use it do not know regarding contraceptives.

Now, I come to my final point, and that is the method of disciplining the mind and character, because I do not wish to approach this matter without an alternative. If I might say so, there are, generally speaking, two ways:—There is the method of repression and control and the method of selection and liberty of choice. We know the method of prohibition and control. I do not wish to say anything ungracious, but I may say it is generally the method of the majority church in this country. It is a method which tries closely to control reading, which fosters good and discourages bad, which sublimates some things and conceals others, and which calls upon the will to surrender its ordained power. There is nobody but has great respect for those methods. They have been tried all down the ages. I should be the last in any way to infringe upon the moral authority by which they are enforced, however much they are infringed, but there is another method, I do not say it is a better alternative. There is the liberty of thought and the freedom of choice. Speaking generally, it is the Protestant method. I do not claim it is any better, though I do claim that the one shoe cannot fit all feet. It may suit some people better than others. It is a way in which there is no forbidden territory, and in which the good sense of the individual is allowed to decide, based on the fact that the instinct of man is for good, and that he is not going to turn to moral garbage, as some people suggest. It is based on the principle that evil cannot be avoided but that it can be faced up to and resisted. It recognises that in life there is an interlocking of good and bad, that virtues are very often vices disguised, and that the only practical way is to allow reason to be the guide. If you would allow me I would like to quote from an 18th century poet, who was, I understand, a member of the majority Church in this country. He deals far better than I can deal with this very important matter of good and bad and the extraordinary complexity of man's nature:

"The eternal art educing good from ill.

Grafts on this passion our best principle.

'Tis thus the mercury of man is fixed.

Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed;

The dross cements what else was too refined,

And in one interest body acts with mind.

As fruit ungrateful to the planter's care

On savage stocks inserted learn to bear;

The rarest virtues thus from passions start,

Wild nature's vigour working at the root;

Lust through certain strainers well refined

Its gentle love charms all womankind;

Nor virtue male or female can we name

But which will grow on pride or grow on shame."

That is the other side of the case of liberty and choice. I say that the State has no right to interfere between these two schools. I say that this Bill is a distinct attempt to deprive those who wish to exercise liberty of choice of the right to do so. Only the other day an educated member of the majority Church said to me: "I dislike this Bill, because I have reached the stage when my religion is not based on superstition. It is based on logical thought. I claim to be a thoroughly good Catholic, and I object to the State coming in between me and my liberty of choice and telling me what I should read and should not read." I go so far as to say that in the spirit this Bill is almost a breach of the Constitution. After all, does this not really sound a note of despair? We have had forty or fifty years of free education, yet despite all that we have drawn a picture of the people of this country showing them thirsting for moral garbage in the most prurient and suggestive Sunday papers, unable to exercise a wise choice and so lacking in the power of discernment that undesirable matter must be forcibly withheld from them. It is a note of pessimism which is unjustified. I do not take such a gloomy view of the future of the race as to think that the people require the sanction of the State to regulate their choice and improve their moral outlook. I also say it is a note of despair on the part of the Church. Surely, with all the moral authority it possesses, and with its great power and traditions, it should have confidence in its power to control its members and direct their choice into wise and healthy channels, whereas we are drawing a picture of the nation thirsting for the prurient and undesirable and calling on the State forcibly to direct their instincts.

I put in a plea for patience. If ex-Senator Yeats, whom we miss so much, was here to-day he would put this case more forcibly than I could. People pass in development from automatism to demoralisation, and from that to intelligence. If you leave them alone and have confidence in their destiny the country will come out all right. This Bill is a note of despair. It shows a lack of confidence in the development of the right-thinking tendencies of our people. I would rather take as our inspiration those lines which were written in a similar connection:

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam."

That may be rather extravagant language for the 17th century, but it is a noble inspiration, it is an inspiration at which we should try to aim, instead of calling in the sanctions of the State to control and regulate the minds and thoughts of our people. I ask the Government and this House to think twice before they impose upon even an unwilling few, to say nothing of the passive and unheeding mass, the fetters of a mediæval code.

The McGillycuddy

I must voice some opinions which are entirely at variance with those put forward by Senator Sir John Keane. I have read the debates on this Bill in the other House with the greatest care, and I find that, from the somewhat immature measure that was first presented to the legislature, we have now before us a Bill immensely improved. I think improvements have been made in it which remove any dangers that it might have contained. I do not think that any reasonable individual can take exception to the principles which this Bill seeks to maintain, but there are certain aspects of it which call for comment and, possibly, for amendment. There is a body of opinion which says that censorship can be more naturally obtained by the better moral education of the young, and that the existing laws are sufficient for the purpose. I think that that is rather an ethical point of view, that more is required. There is no doubt whatever that we could do profitably without much of the verbal and pictorial sex appeal and contraceptive propaganda which appears in many of the publications which enter this country. But we do not want to appear as enemies of modern enlightenment, and we want to be careful to avoid merited ridicule.

There is a danger in any form of censorship, even if it constitutes control of the public Press, and for that reason it requires to be administered with tact, discretion and broadminded commonsense. The Press has an immense power, and though I agree that we should face criticism with the utmost firmness, we should avoid as far as we can those honest mistakes which very often produce unlooked for and undesired repercussions. Senator Sir John Keane has mentioned the doctrine of birth control, and I will say a few words on it. I think, apart from the moral aspect, it should be more widely known that the general practice of birth-control is economically unsound, is as unsound as is the restriction of output in industry. It was one of the main contributing causes to the decline and fall of the Grecian and the Roman Empires, and it was one of France's greatest problems in the last war. In our own country, on the contrary, the general absence of contraceptive measures in our family life produced a surplus population which made the Irish people an immense factor in the lives of the new and sparsely populated countries like America and Australia, and I think that is an important point of view outside the moral one. But the success or failure of this Bill will depend upon the manner of its administration.

To come to the Bill itself, among specific points which were not entirely or adequately dealt with by the Dáil are three:— Firstly, the inconvenience it may cause to those over whose morals we have no control and whose morals are not our concern, who unwittingly visit the country with a proscribed book in their possession; secondly, the ordinary reader who will import books, through ignorance, which appear on the proscribed list. To meet as far as possible these two difficulties I would suggest that the publication of prohibition orders should not be confined, as was suggested in the Dáil, to the "Official Gazette" on the grounds that to publish it broadcast would create an advertisement and would allow the underhand traffic which has been suggested, but that it should be communicated to our Press and to the Booksellers' Association, which represents the chief publishers and libraries abroad. In that way any book which was ordered for this country through ignorance would be stopped at its source, and we would be on sound ground in dealing with people who brought such books into this country. As regards the question of the Customs, inconvenient as it is—and it has a terrible effect on visitors to this country who do not understand our necessities—any additional annoyance should be avoided if possible. I have had experience in the last fortnight of schoolboys returning to England by Fishguard who had all their books examined without any reason at all; they did not know why, and they did not know about this Bill. I do not know why that was done. If the Minister would accept the importance of this contention, I would put down an amendment on the matter.

There is a third point, and one which I do not think the Dáil dealt with at all; that is the question of the cost of this measure. Section 6 (1) of the Bill provides for a preliminary censorship, which indicates that there must be a considerable staff at the Minister's disposal, and although it may be argued that it will largely reduce the work falling on the censors, I find myself at variance with that, because it makes for dual control and double expense. Section 6 (1) reads:—

Whenever a complaint is duly made under this Act to the Minister to the effect that a book or a particular edition of a book is indecent or obscene or advocates the unnatural prevention of conception or the procurement of abortion or miscarriage or the use of any method, treatment or appliance for the purpose of such prevention or such procurement, the Minister may refer such complaint to the Board.

I think in these days, when we centralise things as far as we possibly can—railways, business, and everything else—that this is, possibly, an unsound administrative arrangement. Possibly I am an alarmist, but I have visualised an immense number of frivolous complaints, and there have been recent cases where local bodies have condemned wholesale unread standard books covering a very wide field. Section 20 of the Bill makes provision for the manner and form of complaint, but I suggest, in the same way as the Minister for Agriculture has made his Livestock Act a self-supporting measure, there is no reason why any person who is seriously anxious about public morality should not be required to contribute an inspection fee in order to give an earnest of his bona fides. Let us suppose that there are a thousand books at 6/- each, which is the average price of novels, distributed to the nine censors—and I gather that the number of books will be infinitely larger—the cost of the provision of the literature alone would amount to £2,700, without the additional sums which would be required for the salaries of two separate staffs, an office, publishing, and a lot of other expense. All this is dealt with in three lines in Section 21 of the Bill: "All expenses incurred in carrying this Act into execution shall, to such extent as shall be sanctioned by the Minister for Finance, be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas."

That is all the consideration which has been given, so far as I understand, to the actual cost of this measure, and I feel that sufficient information, extending over a considerable period, must now be available as to the approximate cost of this measure to the public, and that the Minister should be in a position to give us a very definite forecast of the financial liability involved. It is possible that he cannot give it to-day, but I suggest it should be available for our consideration on the Committee Stage of the Bill.

Mr. Bagwell

I think that the House is to be congratulated on not having to deal with this Bill in the form in which it originally appeared. When this matter first came under public notice I had no pre-conceived notions whatever on the subject of censorship; indeed it was one which I have never found to be of any interest, and I have never given any great thought to it. When I read the Bill in its original form I immediately saw in it what appeared to me to be an absolute menace to free expression of thought. Since then the Bill has certainly been subjected to a great deal of able criticism for which it is much the better, and although in principle I am opposed to this kind of legislation, the Bill seems to me very much less objectionable now than it was in its first form. As regards Part I of the Bill, I have nothing much to say at this stage. It seems to me that the definition of the word "indecent," having regard to the objective of the Bill, is a suitable definition enough. As regards Part III. of the Bill—reports of judicial proceedings in newspapers—I find myself disposed to be in agreement with that. This class of literature which it is proposed to suppress can hardly do anybody good, and it quite possibly does real harm. It certainly teaches nothing of any value. I understand that there are newspapers which deliberately cater for what might be called depraved tastes, and probably the country would lose very little if it did not see them. Of course, there is always the danger when you start to do this kind of thing that there may be a newspaper, some part of which would be objectionable, but that the great bulk of it might be quite unexceptionable, and indeed some of it might be educative, and there is a great danger that a good deal of the stuff which is useful and not harmful may be suppressed on account of a small portion. That would result in greater loss than gain. As regards Sections 18 and 19. I see little objection to them, except, of course, that there is always the risk that some District Justice, who might be rather narrow-minded on the subject of pictures, might condemn as indecent pictures which were really not so in the opinion of more broadminded or perhaps more experienced critics.

Part II., which really contains the essential principle of the Bill, and Part IV., except Sections 18 and 19, I find that I must oppose. I look upon this as an interfering and inquisitorial type of legislation, and although I quite recognise, as any reasonable man must, that there are certain difficulties in the way of leaving the position in regard to the censorship precisely where it is, on the whole, I gravely question whether this method of trying to tackle the subject by setting up a Board of Censors will make things better. Now, anyone will admit that there are books published which contain matter capable of harming, at all events, some people, but the suppression of evil literature will not tend to the establishment and the development of a higher moral standard in the people. I hold that you cannot do that by force. You may appear to be doing some good on the surface, but I do not believe you can really effect it. It can only be done by example and inculcation, and I hold that to be the work of the parent, the teacher and the clergyman, the work of the home, the school and the Church, and not of the State. The home, the teacher and the clergyman can get at the heart of the individual, can influence his point of view and influence his taste. The State will never do that. No doubt some control by the State is necessary, but with all the defects at present existing, I would rather leave it in the position in which it is now than set up this machinery. It sets out to make a Board of Censors the jury and the Minister the judge as to what people shall not read.

I think that in the matter of the constitution of the Board of Censors nine is very much better than five. We are apt by that means to have a better chance of securing something that is broadminded, something that represents a reasonable public opinion. If the Board were smaller the danger would be greater, and to that extent the Bill has been improved. But once you set up a Board of Censors in this way, it seems to me that you give a direct incitement to every narrow-minded, puritanical busybody to endeavour to enforce his restrictive views upon everybody else. But if you assume—and it is a big assumption—that the Board of Censors would be so wisely selected that they would be persons not only of a high moral standard, but also liberal and broad-minded, not self-conscious at being selected for this special duty, and so independent and wise that they would not allow themselves to be unduly influenced by the activities of what I have described as puritanical busybodies, I still would object to it, and for reasons which I propose to give shortly. Now, the aim of a Bill of this kind can only be one thing—I do not think anybody would try to make out anything else—it must be the attainment of a higher state of civilisation. I claim that "civilisation" is the right word to use, because it means enlightenment and refinement. That is what we all want, and that is what we all would like to see. The Bill implies that you can partly secure this by oppression. I do not think you can. It is only by people becoming more enlightened that you can achieve it. It seems to me that freedom of thought and freedom of expression is absolutely essential to mental progress and mental improvement, and I think that that progress is liable to be retarded by this kind of censorship.

There are innumerable examples in the world of what was once anathema becoming accepted fact and quite a reasonable point of view to which no moral stigma attaches whatever, whereas at the beginning it would undoubtedly have been censored. That sort of thing is always going on, and it would be very difficult for a Board of Censors to avoid making that kind of mistake with regard to books. It might very well be that that would prove also to be the case with regard to this very contentious question of birth control and contraceptives. People think violently on this subject now. New things are often a great shock to people and they see nothing but harm in them, but as time goes on they get to see that what seemed to them entirely harmful in the beginning is not really so harmful, that there is more to be said for it, and their point of view develops, they acquire greater wisdom, and they find that it would have been a great mistake if such an idea had been suppressed at birth. If a small body of men, however wisely selected, are set up as arbiters as to what extent people can disseminate their views progress is sure to be retarded. It seems to me that the ideal of primitive virtue and primitive simplicity is a fallacy altogether. Civilised man undoubtedly stands on a much higher moral plane than savage man. He is less cruel, less selfish, more kindly and more considerate to his fellow man than the primitive man is. How has that advance been secured? It has been secured simply by progress of knowledge. There is a phrase, "moral and intellectual progress." I think it ought to be "intellectual and moral progress," because I believe that intellectual progress is the thing that carries moral progress with it, and without intellectual progress you will never get moral progress or moral improvement. The moral code tends to be a static thing: intellectual progress is obviously a thing that is not static, a thing that is always improving.

Every civilisation has had a moral code or standard; there was always some good in them, and some of them were better than others. The code of morals which we Christians all believe to be the best that has ever been was given to us 1929 years ago and it has not in that time been improved in the slightest degree. It was a perfect code of morals. We have had all the time a splendid moral code. It has not altered at all: but man has undoubtedly improved in that time, and man has a very much higher standard to-day than at the time when that moral code was given to him. How is that? It is simply by the progress of knowledge. During those centuries the tendency has been for moral codes, prohibitions, and all that kind of thing, to be less and less enforced. Man has been allowed by man more and more intellectual freedom; he has been allowed more and more to judge for himself. The result has undoubtedly been good, because I think any reasonably-minded person who goes back over the history of any country will see that on the whole, there has been an improvement, and that improvement. I claim, has come about through free dissemination of thought. There must be a certain amount of trial and error about the progress of thought and increase of human knowledge, but on the whole the error is not nearly so great as the gain. You tend to gain the whole time by the free and unfettered dissemination of new ideas. All that kind of thing—speculative thought, new things, not accepting exactly what we have always excepted, enquiry—tends to be interfered with by the establishment of the principle of a censorship like this. It seems to me that there can be no greater mistake than to stifle speculation in that way and to deprive people of the opportunity of sharing it.

It may be—nobody hopes for it more than I do—that if this Bill does go through in anything like its present form a Board of Censors will be set up that will be so well selected and will act so wisely, that what I fear will not come about, that only that which is valueless as well as detrimental will be suppressed, and nothing really good, truthful or instructive will be prohibited. But, after all, it must be remembered that this Bill sets out to do what many great civilised States with vast experience, far greater experience than we have got in this newly-created State, have feared to do, because they saw the great difficulties and dangers in the way. It seems to me that this deciding by the State what people should not read is like trying to put the whole nation back into school. It is immeasurably better with all this sort of thing to allow people to say, within reasonable limits, of course, what they think, and let other people know what they are thinking. By that means people will, in time, discard that which is not good. You will eventually arrive, not by methods of oppression but by methods of more and more the fostering of knowledge and education, and widening the views of the country, at a state of affairs whereby the whole people will be like what we hope the Board of Censors will be, that is, people of great experience, wisdom and good taste, that there would then be no evil literature published because nobody would be attracted by it or would read it. That is the direction from which we should approach this, in my opinion, and not by repressive legislation, which might in itself start some very much greater evil.

Mr. Dowdall

There has been more hypocritical rubbish spoken and written of this Bill than I think of all the Bills that have come before the Oireachtas since it started. I am astonished at the moderation of Senator Sir John Keane. He said that the intelligent class of this country was equally divided—a would-be literary gentleman writing from this country to an English newspaper saying that all the educated people in Ireland were against this Bill. I read this Bill, and all I can say in connection with it is that if the Minister for Agriculture had dealt in such a kid-glove manner with foot and mouth disease, we would always have foot and mouth disease. There is not the slightest chance under this Bill as it stands at present that any book, except a book that is outrageously objectionable, will be interfered with in any way. We have all this solicitude lest the syndicated Press be interfered with. Newspapers in this country have been suppressed and confiscated within the past few weeks, and nobody said a word about it. With any number of safeguards, lest by any mischance anything whatever of value might be suppressed, this Bill comes before us. We were dealing with copyright the session before last, and incidentally, a gentleman who pleaded that he was a literary man, referred to James Joyce's "Ulysses" as a great work of art. James Joyce's "Ulysses" is a book of such a nature that it will not be permitted to be transmitted through the post, either in America or in England. The publisher of that book on one occasion charged a man who wrote a book called "The Whispering Gallery," with obtaining money under false pretences. The counsel who defended that man, cross-examined the publisher of "Ulysses," and then put it to the jury that the man published it as a catch-penny, and that he knew well that the charge with regard to the nature and quality of the book for which he was charging this man with obtaining money under false pretences, had no ground and effect, and the jury believed him and acquitted the man.

If you take Senator Sir John Keane's absolute right of private judgment and the good taste of the individual and assume that a man may go through a period of demoralisation but that he will come back to morality, you might as well scrap the Ten Commandments and the whole criminal law. No other logical deduction could be drawn from the greater part of his speech but that the individual should be allowed to do what he likes and that he will come right in the end.

These books about Essex and Elizabeth and about Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV. are not immoral. As the Minister pointed out yesterday, an occasional passage which may be objectionable will not constitute a book as an indecent book. This talk about Shakespeare, merely because his works contain an objectionable passage here and there, and of other works of that kind does not apply because they were not books purposely written to degrade or excite sensual passion, and everybody who has followed the debates on this Bill knows that that is so. The only interpretation I can put on all this talk is that the Board of Censors are to be like lunatics, that men will be put on the Board who will be religious maniacs, and that of course the Minister for Justice has also been appointed because he is a maniac and will act on their reports.

I read quite a good deal, rather more than I think my eyes entitle me to read, but I have no difficulty in getting, in the range of literature, clean books to read. Balzac has been mentioned, and the heart of the country is torn with sorrow because select spirits cannot read all the works from Euripides to the Restoration dramatists. I would not interfere with Euripides, the Restoration dramatists, or Balzac, but I would interfere with the garbage and the rubbish, written deliberately to degrade, that is imported here. Whether it is imported here or printed here I would interfere with it. As a matter of fact, Senator Sir John Keane made out that there was a tremendous demand in this country for pornographic literature. Of course there is not, but you need to keep the evil, as evil it is, as small and as circumscribed as possible. Senator Sir John Keane gave us a picture of the right of private judgment from the point of view of the Protestant Church and of the Catholic Church. Well, a gentleman speaking some time ago said: "I am attacked on the one hand by all those people who put freedom of speech and thought and writing before everything else in the world, as if there were freedom in God's world to pollute the young generation growing up. There must be some limit to the freedom of what a man may write or speak in this great country of ours." That statement was made by Sir William Joynson Hicks, and I think he is as much entitled to speak for the Protestant point of view as Senator Sir John Keane is.

Colonel Moore

When I first heard of this Bill, I confess I was rather shocked and had difficulty in approving of it, mostly because I have lived through a long period in which taste in books and taste in decency have varied enormously. Moreover, I have read very freely every book that came to my hand, whether it was proper or improper, moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, and therefore I have some difficulty in understanding why I should vote to prevent other people from doing the same thing. But after all, when I read the Bill it did seem to me that it was not a harmful one, and that if we are to do anything at all, we could not attempt to do it without doing what it proposes to do. There have been very great difficulties about freedom of speech and literature from the very earliest times. We had Milton writing a splendid book on the subject, and many others have dealt with it, but the main difficulty I see about the matter is the changed opinion. There has been a change of opinion since I was young, when books were not published such as are published now, except in secret, and not much in that way.

I remember that one of the great publishers in London, Vizetelly, was brought into court and charged with publishing indecent books and was sent to prison. Certain of the books for which he was sent to prison for publishing were nothing to the books that are written now, and not only written by ordinary people, but by distinguished ladies in the highest society. I read one not very long ago that certainly would not have been published at one time. That is the real difficulty—to decide what is moral and what is suitable. When Senator Sir John Keane said that the proper way was to let things go on as at present, with the police and the judges to decide, we must remember the example of what happened a great publisher in London who was sent to prison by a judge on police evidence. I do not see that there is anything much better in one way than in the other way. He said that he did not think any reasonable person wrote books of an indecent character in order to get circulation. I do not think the Senator is correct in that. In fact, there are books to-day, often written by indifferent writers, which could not get a circulation in any other way but by having a certain amount of indecency. They get that circulation, while those who write very much better books do not get it.

It is very difficult to steer clear in these matters. Whichever way you go you may be going wrong. After all, in all our human efforts, we cannot set up those high standards of right and wrong; we have to take a sort of middle course between the two, and we are liable to go wrong. Whether it be by Judges, or a Committee appointed for the purpose, they are liable to go wrong. The whole thing is a matter of administration. If you had a Board of seven or nine who were impeccable, then I think there should be no difficulty or trouble about the Bill. But you cannot get them. You have to chance it. Possibly one of these days you might have a complaint of the censorship. I think that is very likely. But we have to choose between the two evils, and it seems to me that, on the whole, this is the lesser of the two evils. Anybody who compares the literature in England at the present day with the literature of former times will see that books in the old days in England were reeking with indecency, according to the present view, which is very liberal as to sex and sexual relations. Personally I believe that these things will change, and that it is desirable to have some sort of court or something that there can be an appeal to. Some Senators spoke in a very indefinite way. Senator Sir John Keane and another Senator spoke about free speech, free will, Protestantism, and various things. Probably he meant protestism rather than Protestantism as a religion being more liberal and free minded than others. I do not think he is quite correct in that. As a matter of fact, I think it is the other way. If we look back to the time of the Puritans, they certainly allowed no free will whatever about religion, morality or anything else, or if we look at this country when it was ruled by a certain religion we will see that there was no free will. There is no free will in any part of the world in these matters. People are governed by their feelings, their anger, their passions, and their prejudices, and will probably be to the end of time. Therefore I think it is quite ridiculous to claim for one particular set of people whom I call protesters that they are any better in these matters than any others. I think they are all much the same. Senator Keane also suggested that this country was so reeking with a desire for indecency that this Bill had to be introduced. The position is rather the opposite; it is because the people do not desire indecency that they want to stop it. We all know that if indecent books and papers are published they will have a great effect on the youth of the country. Milton, who wrote strongly on the matter from the free printing view, said that there was nothing in the world which influenced people so much as writing, and that books spread the seed all over the world. Now that the whole world is influenced by thought, and by books, we ought to be careful of the sort of books we have. England is not at all in favour of every book being allowed to circulate, but very much to the contrary. I do not think it is desirable to talk too much on the matter. I have not very much to say that is of much use, and I think the Seanad has practically made up its mind, that some such Bill should go through, and I hope it will.

Dr. Gogarty

I have been trying to analyse my feelings with regard to this Bill, but my impressions of it are rather mixed. I feel a certain amount of resentment, but that may be owing to the rumour as to how this Bill originated. It is attributed to two barristers who, with half an eye on God and two on better business, concerned themselves about the moral welfare of the nation, and, judging by the Minister's countenance when Senator Sir John Keane was speaking and devastatingly criticising the Bill, it exhibited a certain expression of relief, as if he rejoiced that this newly-introduced drum-thumping at which we have arrived, was about to be made to cease. They thump the drums for William, Prince of Orange, in the North every year. But down here there is a new form of drum-thumping beginning with just a low rumble at present, to announce that our lawyers have taken up moral laws. I do not like any men to exploit a kind of lay vocation at the expense of their neighbours, and that is the principal feeling of which I would be glad to be clear, and which gives rise to my chief objection to this Bill. But, inasmuch as it is before us, let us examine it and see if it should be weakened or strengthened in certain ways. It is really two-fold; it is a Bill to suppress contraceptive literature (which should have been met by a Bill of its own), and on top of that laudable provision, there is erected all this business which descends to examining at the Customs schoolboys' books, even before the Bill is made law, and preventing the circulation of certain literature. In that way it is duplex. No one who has any care for a nation's welfare can for one moment countenance contraceptive practices, which are a contradiction of a nation's life. In England the condition of the miners and the unemployed is as it is because England has allowed its capital to go into yellow, brown and black labour, so that the Government tolerates clinics for education in the practice of contraception. The English Government has practically told the unemployed that they should not cumber the earth. That is in the land in which heroes are contra-conceived.

We must make the Bill capable of dealing adequately, without undue hardships on the public, with this contraceptive literature. And the Bill does not provide for it very thoroughly, because it is only when an announcement of a birth is made that the mother who is privileged to increase the population is inundated by English firms with this literature, explaining and advocating the use of contraceptives. To prevent this we have either to consider interfering with the passage of any such matter through the post or to stop any announcement of births (although it might be no harm to discontinue to announce births in those newspapers which put births before marriages). But it is quite conceivable that cards could be circulated amongst friends announcing that so-and-so had a son or a daughter, and abstain from using the medium of newspapers for that announcement. This would preserve the privacy of the Post Office. I know that the newspapers will object to this because it would mean a loss of advertisements. Otherwise it involves interference with the post, because it is through the post that this literature is circulated, as I know. Are we going to open every new mother's letters for six or seven weeks after a birth? Else how are we going to see that this literature cannot creep in?

Now let me turn to the question of the freedom of the Press. What this country needs is freedom from the Press, the great syndicated Press that we hear so much about, the Press that, according to Senator Sir John Keane, will freely raise nations to moral heights. That Press is the Press which addresses itself to the English masses, to the miners, and to the unemployed that England does not want, the people who are told to say "No" to life, the people who are told they had better not be born. We have had examples in this country lately of most offensive material in a newspaper. It first began with the amatory adventures of a Mrs. Pace, whose husband died strangely from some mixture of sheep dip, which was administered to him, possibly by some ministering angel, but certainly not administered by Mrs. Pace. Newspapers bid enthusiastically for the story of her life, and that story was circulated broadcast in this country. Well, we are not bound to read everything, but that is the kind of thing that, apparently, the multitude requires in England— excitement with regard to a mysterious tragedy and, subsequently, the opinions of the woman heroine on love. The Press can never lead people, because it has to speak down to them in its appeal, just the same as in the cimena, which has to leap the barriers of different nationalities. It has only two or three themes that are comprehensible to the proletariat, regardless of race and language, themes of violence and passion. In the same way the Press, if it is to maintain circulation, must deal with such excitement, and in this way always address the average masses, and the sub-average. You can rarely lead a nation upwards by the freedom of the Press, which really means unrestricted circulation, regardless of subject matter. No lesson or ideal can be taught by such newspapers.

This Bill that the two barristers are said to have instigated, not, of course, for any reason but to save the national soul, makes no provision to forbid the circulation of those books which are on the Index Expurgatorius or the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. It is far more important to prevent the circulation of pernicious books than of those which are apparently only to some minds indecent, books which are against the Faith, like Tolstoy's pamphlets. Notice is to be taken of his weary fight of concupiscence and conscience, but not a word against his pamphlets, which are allowed to be broadcast through the country because there is not something “indecent” in them. If the Press sends in garbage, there is nothing to prevent that except to make provision beforehand forbidding the circulation of those newspapers, and there should be provided in this Bill that the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of Rome be upheld in Ireland. I do not think that this country is so extraordinarily depraved as its would-be safeguarders seem to think. And let us not blame the English newspapers for all our faults. Why should we pretend that all our devils are “foreign devils” when we have energetic native ones? I have a kind of objection to the Bill, because I felt that virtue was being thrust upon us by self-approved people, but I do say that this country must protect itself, not only from the objectionable type of newspaper that comes in from outside, but from the type of newspaper that is already in. Never have the daily papers in Ireland been consistent, either ethically or politically. They have done more harm than good. One paper, the one with the compulsory Latin, has a formula of “all good Irishmen,” and tells us what all good Irishmen should do, while at the same time it tries to belittle the authority that upholds the citizenship of Irishmen. There is another newspaper that considers that the human memory is a matter of twenty-four hours, as it is probably soon to become. In order that this Censorship Bill may be practicable and less unpleasant I intend to introduce one or two amendments which I think will strengthen it. Probably it would be enough to direct the Bill against pamphlets, advertisements and newspapers, and leave books out. We are not a very great reading country, and there is a great advertisement given to a book by repressing it. When a certain objectionable book recently was printed, 30,000 copies were printed for circulation in those countries in which censorship obtains, and only a few thousand were sold in France, where there is no censorship, so that in some instances censorship is an incitement to people to read books. There is another thing which may be considered with regard to this Bill. I refer now to newspapers. The very psychology of reading a thing in a newspaper is subtle and harmful, because the reader thinks that he has got the endorsement of all the public which that newspaper addresses. If you read a thing in a newspaper that has a circulation of millions of copies you think that millions of people cannot be wrong like the “40 million Frenchmen” in the song, and that therefore there is an authoritative endorsement behind any statement in that paper, and that you in your lonely judgment are wrong if you do not agree. That is one of the most insidious influences of the printed word, and one which this Bill does not even notice. “Editorials,” which are the voices of the proprietors speaking through an intelligent secretary, can influence and interfere even with a nation's government; there is no attempt to check this, and if the newspaper is irresponsible it is still worse. We have had marked examples of vituperation and calumny directed against those who dare to criticise this Bill in the lower House published by little, ephemeral periodicals.

This Bill, if it becomes law, must not be retroactive. If its promoters are consistent they must be satisfied with legislation directed against what they call the "present-day flood of foreign garbage" and not seek to include the classic masterpieces of the world. A stop must be put to customs officers searching trunks before this Bill becomes law. Otherwise we will become as ridiculous as regards this measure as customs officers in Italy, where Plato's "Republic" was seized because the word "republic" was on the cover.

Now, there is a very good law in Belgium touching newspapers. It is directed against what is known as the "tendency" of a newspaper. If anyone is attacked by a newspaper, there is a law there which provides that he gets an equally prominent space for his reply. As things are here, a conspiracy of silence or a refusal to print a reply to criticism can be tantamount to a conspiracy against existence. There is more than print in newspapers. There are captions and scare hysterical headlines by which trivial things are made to look important. We often see "tragedies" in the evening editions of newspapers fade away and become back page "items" in the morning. It should be made incumbent on every newspaper to have the same size of printing on the top of every one of its columns. That may seem ridiculous, but you cannot put your finger upon a libel; you cannot bring a compositor and fine him for libel because he has used large "leads." This new form of expression is like a Chinese letter which is half a picture and which has a psychological effect greater than a simple word. Then there is also the matter of juxtaposition. If you had an announcement, say, of the death of the Dean of Canterbury in one column, and in the adjacent column statistics of the Department of Agriculture, recording the number of chickens that had died of the pip, although there is no reason to connect these two "tragedies," such a juxtaposition could have some effect and no one could be held responsible. I intend to do my best to make this Bill apply to local newspapers. Certainly we should arrive at some agreement to stop the advertisement of contraceptive literature, if possible without interfering with the Post. Countries that use such practices are putting themselves at the mercy of other peoples. They are trying to shift the weight of their work over to the more populous countries where life is cheap, and in the end they will be overwhelmed by the child-bearing nations. Against Ireland this cannot be said: we have helped to populate the English-speaking world—perhaps through no fault of our own.

This Bill will involve expense, but there is no information at present as to what it will cost. Our National Museum for a saving of £7,000 is being absolutely starved. A gentleman a few years ago proposed to present a very valuable collection of Greek vases to our National Museum, but he found there were old clothes, armour and a coach and four in the place where the vases would be most properly exposed. The money that is necessary for the record, preservation and exhibition of our national culture is denied, and while that is so I think we should at least know what the administration of this Act is going to cost so that we can see whether its future hypothetical benefits are more important than to put within reach of our nation treasures which it already has.

Mr. Johnson

I am not sure whether the Minister was better pleased with the support the Bill got from Senator Gogarty or the attack on it by Senator Sir John Keane. I intend to support the Second Reading of this Bill. I ask the House to bear in mind that it is the Bill that has come up from the Dáil that we are dealing with, and not the Bill that was introduced into the Dáil. I disagree utterly with the Minister in his statement last night that the Bill was made less valuable during the course of its passage through the Dáil. I think that the Bill has been immensely improved, and that it can in reason and fairness be supported in its main purpose as it stands before us. I think that there are still some amendments required to it, but amendments only to give a clear meaning to what the Minister has declared to be his desire. I failed to note that Senator Sir John Keane made any comment upon Part III. of the Bill, which deals with the reports of judicial proceedings. Senator Bagwell did undoubtedly approve of the inclusion of that portion of the Bill. As I look upon this question of censorship, if it were reasonably possible in modern life to prevent having no censorship at all it would be better than to have a censorship, but I think that is not reasonably possible. I think that the overwhelming stress of the facts makes it imperative that there should be a censorship. The question arises: What shall be the nature of the censorship? The opposition of Senator Bagwell, and perhaps also of Senator Sir John Keane, does not extend to the prohibition of reports of divorce proceedings. Why? If it is reasonable to expect the moral judgment of the reader to determine what he shall read or what he shall omit to read, there is no reason why there should be a prohibition. The part of the Bill dealing with that subject is taken almost wholly, I think, from the British Bill dealing with the same subject. The British Bill appears to have been forced upon the legislature by the overwhelming desire of decent people in England.

The newspapers in England had catered for a demand in that overwhelmingly Protestant country amongst people who had a free choice in their reading. This overwhelmingly Protestant country with this big choice had apparently devoured the reading that had been provided for it regarding divorce proceedings. One very important feature of this whole question arises from the fact that you have a very wealthy Press seeking circulation and advertisement that are prepared to adopt almost any means to get that circulation and advertisement. They cater for a depraved demand, which demand is common. There is no use denying our own character. There was some time in our lives—I suppose I can speak as an average kind of person—when we would perhaps devour certain evil things, and if that is common over many millions, there is a Press waiting to apply itself to satisfy, shall I say, that temporary demand. The very existence of that highly capitalised Press seeking to use the mechanical means available to feather its monetary nest, is one of the very important facts in this position. We know the way things have developed within the last two or three years in this country; how for the purpose of getting an additional few tens of thousands of readers in this country, all the big wealthy newspapers are competing with one another by all kinds of means for circulation. We had an instance a few days ago of that kind of thing when certain papers, presumably of good repute, certainly good repute in some quarters in this country, went out of their way to publish sensational news about the awful state of things in this city of Dublin and the country generally.

I may refer to that later, but the fact remains that there is a very wealthy Press seeking to satisfy an unhealthy demand for prurient details and evil suggestions. How is that to be stopped? It may be printed newspapers, but it is not printed newspapers only. There are many other kinds of publications which are not in the nature of newspapers at all that will contain the kind of thing that most decent people look upon as undesirable. I am not sure that the Bill does not require amendment in that respect, though I see difficulties in the application of any provision. I am speaking rather of the complete story in one representative periodical which is not a newspaper, but which is catering for the same unhealthy appetite as the newspapers which we decry and denounce are doing.

Should that undesirable literature be prohibited or should we trust to the application of the criminal law? That is to say that when an offence has been committed there should be a prosecution. Here I think a very strong case can be made in favour of the application of the law after the offence is committed. I do not think that side of the matter has been argued very closely, and yet I see the weakness of it inasmuch as the present law in the matter appears to give the Minister almost equal powers as an individual with the powers that are given under the Bill in regard to the stopping of the importation of literature which is undesirable. There may be a difficulty. It is stated on the best authority that there is a difficulty regarding the legal interpretation of the word "indecent," but that depends, of course, on judgments in the British courts. I am not so sure that if a similar question were raised in the Irish courts that a different interpretation of the existing Act might not be given by an Irish court.

However, apart from that what is the position in regard to the importation of books? The Minister, acting through one instrument or another, can prevent their circulation by seizing them at the port of entry. We have had recent instances reported in English newspapers of the action of the British Home Secretary in that respect. The customs authorities can be instructed to seize literature which the Minister considers to be indecent or obscene—perhaps I should say indecent and obscene. The Postmaster-General is in the same position, and the Minister's judgment is going to prevail if he decides that it is necessary to inaugurate a campaign of prohibition of this nature. What is going to be the effect of this Bill in regard to the action of the Minister? It seems to me that the effect of the Board is going, shall I say, to modify, if not remove, the powers that he has at present and which will remain, and, in effect, I think will take from his shoulders much of the responsibility which at present lies in his hands. Honestly, I think that I would prefer to trust the judgment of a Board of seven out of nine or four out of five or whatever the number is to be, of men who would be selected by the Minister, if he follows, let us say, the indications given by the Commission upon whose report this Bill is based. I would prefer to trust the judgment of such a Board rather than the judgment of the Minister. I do not want to be offensive politically, and certainly not offensive personally, but I have got an insight, let us say, into the kind of dangers that at present reside in the powers that the Minister has by the speech I heard him make last night. It was full of the atmosphere of tyranny in the best vein of Hamar Greenwood without any sense of justice, and regardless of the liberty of the subject. Now, were a Minister with such a mentality to be suddenly taken with the thought that he must enter upon a campaign of purifying the circulation of literature in this country, and using the powers that he has at present without any check it would be much more dangerous to the public and to the reading public than the decision of a Board of five out of seven or seven out of nine would be. Senator Gogarty made a special reference to the recommendation regarding newspapers. There was a special provision inserted, after discussion in the Dáil, which allows the prohibition to be made in respect of newspapers or periodicals which devote an unduly large proportion of space to the publication of sensational matter relating to crime. The word "sensational" seems to me to be somewhat unnecessary, but I have a feeling, and I suppose we all have our pet aversions in these things, that that section of the Bill is likely to be the most useful of all.

I am glad that other people think as I think that the concentration of criticism upon imported papers of this undesirable kind is hardly just if we are led to exempt from our criticism the Dublin printed papers. One reads certain evening newspapers published in this city, and occasionally one sees column after column headed sensationally, giving details of all kinds of the most sordid crimes which have no relation whatever to incidents in this country, and which people in this country have not the slightest interest in except a deliberately excited interest. Now, why a Dublin newspaper should want to set itself out to create interest in the Dublin reading public in crimes committed in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, New York and other places I do not know, but it is a common practice. That practice is not nearly so bad in the Dublin morning papers, but the Dublin evening newspapers do undoubtedly on occasion set themselves out to give lurid accounts of the most abominable crimes which have no interest, and ought not to excite any interest, in this country. The Bill, having gone outside its original purpose which was to prohibit the circulation of books or periodicals exciting to sexual immorality and to extend its prohibitions to newspapers giving an undue amount of space to crime and criminal proceedings, it occurs to me that there is really a much greater evil prevalent and likely to become more prevalent that might be dealt with by this Bill.

I would like to hear some views from Senators before this discussion closes as to what their attitude would be towards an extension of the scope of the Bill in the direction of prohibiting betting odds before a race. I know this will bring upon my devoted head a good deal of criticism. I think there is 150 times more evil prevalent in this country to-day excited by the publication of betting odds in the form of news and prophecies as to what will happen at certain places at a certain time on a certain date than all the evil literature that is at present in circulation. I think, as I say, there is 150 times more evil being done by that very fact that newspaper after newspaper, edition after edition, is endeavouring to feed an unhealthy appetite which leads to excessive gambling, and is spreading itself over boys and girls and men and women all over the country, and leading to inevitable moral disaster. The prohibition should be extended to betting and made more drastic as regards the publication of betting odds before a race. It would not be peculiar to this country, inasmuch as it is a system in operation in more than one country in the world, and its effects in this country would, I think, be very beneficial as regards the population whatever may be the effect on the revenues of the newspaper proprietors.

A number of questions will arise in the course of the Committee examination of the Bill. It surprises me that some of these questions have not been dealt with in the Bill as amended in the Dáil. Perhaps it is my ignorance of the procedure, but I find that while there are powers of search and to seize there are no powers to destroy. Perhaps the Minister would give his attention to that point. I am wondering what it is intended should happen to the books that have been seized, and who has power to order their destruction? I referred a few minutes ago to incidents that had been reported in newspapers in recent months in Great Britain. There we have had evidence of the present powers of the Minister. He can seize literature and force the owner, or reputed owner, to satisfy the magistrate that this literature ought not to be destroyed. He can seize literature or manuscripts in the post and secure their destruction. I have no hesitation whatever in asserting that if the present Minister were to use his present powers and get a case into Court he would get such an interpretation of the existing law as would enable him to be very much more drastic than the Board will be likely to be. If on no other ground than that I am inclined to think that the general principle of the Bill ought to be approved. I say the general principle of the Bill, because I am dealing, as I have said already, with the Bill that is before us, as I think the Bill as introduced originally was very dangerous indeed, and I am very glad that the Dáil has had the good sense to amend it in the fashion in which it has been amended.

Mr. Comyn

I think this is a very reasonable and a very moderate Bill, and it is all the better because it is so moderate. I agree with the Senators who have already spoken that it has been considerably improved as a result of discussion in the Dáil. I hope it will be further improved as a result of discussion in the Seanad. From what Senator Johnson has said, I think there are two or three points—perhaps not points of great consequence, but still important points—which could be cleared up. I was greatly interested in the information which Senator Gogarty volunteered to the House as to the paternity of this Bill. It is only right, of course, we should get such information from a medical man, but still I was greatly surprised to learn that it is the unnatural offspring of two barristers, with half an eye on God and two on better business. I would like to ask Senator Gogarty, if he had not disappeared, for some further information upon that question, but whatever the paternity of the measure may be, it is my submission to this House that it was a necessary measure, and that it is a very reasonable measure, and I commend it to the approval of this House. Senator Sir John Keane is not here, and, therefore, I am at some disadvantage in dealing with his speech in initiating this discussion. I do not like to say hard things about a man except in his presence, and perhaps if he were here I might be tempted to say two or three things which he might remember for some time. In the first place, he referred to the adroit and artful modesty with which the advocates of this measure have supported it. I think the advocates of this measure in the Dáil, in the country, and in the House have been moderate and reasonable. I do not think the opposition to the Bill, as voiced by Senator Sir John Keane, was either moderate or reasonable opposition. I followed his speech very carefully indeed to discover the underlying principle or motive of his speech, and I found it in one sentence. This is not mainly a question of morality; this is a national question, a question of race. For long generations our Gaelic race have been down. They have had to do hard things in life, and they are hardened men. They will survive. In Rome and in London luxury has had its natural consequence in the decline of population.

In former times the poor could be imprisoned or exiled, but now that they have political power that cannot be done, but they must be educated in contraceptive principles and contraceptive knowledge. Here is the sentence in which Senator Sir John Keane disclosed the lack of knowledge of contraceptive principles. He said: "Those who wrongfully use the knowledge of contraceptives know all about them, but those to whom that knowledge would be of advantage do not know anything about them." I am glad that the people of Ireland have no knowledge of the literature of contraception or of novels published at the price of 15/- a copy dealing with contraceptives. I hope the effect of this measure will be to stamp out absolutely the traffic in this knowledge, and it is a traffic behind which there is plenty of money.

About eight months ago, in the streets of Dublin, I saw a man selling a book—an almanac—at 3d. per copy. The money he received from the sale of these books would not supply him with boots. I bought a copy of this book, which purported to be an almanac, a cheap publication going into the hands of the poor people, the working people, and every second page was a full-page advertisement of contraceptives and the places where contraceptives could be got. I say that is political propaganda, and propaganda directed against the Irish race. I want to stop that. I want this House to stop it, and I want the legislature of the country to stop it. I was glad to learn when I visited the Dáil that that was the main purpose of this Bill, and that, whatever else would be jettisoned, in that respect the Bill would probably be strengthened. Senator Sir John Keane said that threats would be likely to be used against people opposing this measure. His words were that "Those who had the courage to oppose a measure of this description would not be acceptable to the people when they went up for election again." I do not like threats. I have very little regard for them. I believe that when a threat is uttered very little more than a threat is meant, but what I do say is that people with an outlook of this kind are not fitted to represent the people of this country.

He has also said that the minority for which he speaks are represented in art and literature out of all proportion to their numbers. I deny that statement. Whom does he speak for? Does he speak for the Church of Ireland? If he speaks for the Church of Ireland why does he not quote the authority of the heads of that Church? He quotes from a statement purported to have been made by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have yet to learn that the Archbishop of Canterbury is head of the Irish Church or has any influence in Ireland. Then, again, he quotes from an unknown and unnamed old Catholic ecclesiastic. I would like to have in writing the opinion that was alleged to have been expressed by that Catholic ecclesiastic. I will do Senator Sir John Keane the justice of saying that he has misunderstood that Catholic ecclesiastic, because any Catholic ecclesiastic speaking in the words which Senator Sir John Keane has attributed to him would be guilty of heresy according to the laws of the Church.

Sir John Keane

On a point of explanation, I think the Senator has misunderstood me. What I said was purely with reference to the intervention of the State in matters of choice, not with regard to birth control. It was not an ecclesiastic but a Catholic layman.

Mr. Comyn

Then I withdraw my remarks on that. If Senator Sir John Keane referred to a Catholic layman of mature years of course there is no point in my criticism of what he said, but what we have to do with the opinion of an unnamed Catholic layman outside this Seanad is more than I can tell. We have had from Senator Sir John Keane an expression of great regret that the works of Tolstoy might not be read in this country. On the other hand, Senator Gogarty tells us that Tolstoy is a dreary performance. Between the two I do not know what we are to think, but I do not think that the majority of the people of Ireland would be much interested as to whether the works of Tolstoy should come into this country or not. Moreover, I do not think that seven members of any Board of Censors would reject any of the works of Tolstoy. Then, again, the question is asked: Is this measure to be retrospective? Why not, if literature is obscene and immoral? Obscene and immoral literature has been written and published thousands of years ago. How does the fact of its antiquity affect the question as to whether it should go into the hands of young, immature people in this country? At the same time, I do not say that great works such as those of Shakespeare and Boccacio, or any mediaeval or classical writer, would be excluded by any Board of Censors.

I quite agree with what Senator the McGillycuddy of the Reeks said, that a measure of this description has to be carefully considered so as to prevent the interference of busybodies and superior laymen who set themselves above the ordinary Catholic or Protestant, as the case may be. That was the great defect in the original Bill. It was provided that voluntary associations should be established whose function it would be to report on books and publications to the Minister. The Dáil has saved us the trouble of removing that sub-section from the Bill by a very substantial majority, who decided that it was right and proper the Minister should have control of the publications coming into this country, and that he should be assisted by a Board of Censors, but the Dáil by a heavy majority decided later to have nothing to do with these voluntary associations of laymen, and in that I think they have done right.

Coming to the question of periodical publications, I think that the seventh section dealing with these publications is as reasonable and moderate as could possibly be conceived. It states that whenever a complaint is made under this Act to the Minister that periodical publications have usually or frequently been obscene or indecent or have advocated the unnatural prevention of conception he may refer the report to the Board. Is not that most reasonable? They will not have to be pounced upon for a slip that may occur in one issue of the paper. The paper must be known to be usually or frequently guilty of publishing publications of an obscene or filthy character. I think that very reasonable and very wise. I am glad the measure is so moderate, because we are beginning in this country to deal with an evil which is the growth of modern civilisation. It is well to begin moderately. The Dáil and the Seanad still retain the power of making the measure stronger, if necessary. I hope it will not become necessary. I am sure there are some amendments which must be made. There are some points which must be cleared up. Senator Johnson has indicated one. There is the right to seize books and to take them away. That is true, there is the right, and there is no expressed right to destroy the books, but there is another law in addition to the law contained in this Bill, and I think that other legislation would be sufficient to empower the authorities to deal with the matter. The next question is one in which I am somewhat interested: What about the expense of this Bill? We are to have nine Senators, but there is nothing said about their payment. Some Senators are anxious to know from the Minister whether any provision for payment should be made.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney)

They will be unpaid censors.

Mr. Comyn

I think it would be a relief to some people to know they would be unpaid. I am sure I do not envy those nine censors who are to be unpaid and who are to read all those books, and I suppose the only perquisite they will have is a free copy of the book. I do not think there will be much competition for that particular post.

Mr. O'Farrell

The Bill before the Seanad is, I venture to say, an absolutely different measure to that which was first introduced. I do not agree with the Minister when he says that the Bill has been disimproved. On the contrary, I think those members of the other House who had the moral courage, despite the pressure which amounted almost to intimidation, to amend the Bill in the manner in which it has been amended, deserve congratulation, especially at a time when moral courage is at a very low ebb. I agree with the Minister in one respect, that is the raising of the number from five to nine is hardly calculated to improve the effectiveness of the Bill. The success or otherwise of the Bill will depend almost entirely on the wisdom and courage of the persons whom the Minister will appoint on the Censorship Board. If he is endowed by Providence with sufficient wisdom and has the courage, I hope and believe that he will select the right people, and then there may be none or very few of those abuses that would otherwise be likely to creep in under a censorship of this kind. It is easier I think to get five suitable people than nine. The more people there are the more talk there will be, and the more expense and the less efficiency.

I deplore altogether statements I have heard people making in private regarding the origin of the idea of raising the membership from five to nine. The suggestion has been made that the meaning of it is so that the Board might be arranged on a sectarian basis of six and three. I hope the Minister will not give way to a foolish division of the Board in that way, for it is not necessary for a person to belong to any particular creed to be a good, courageous judge of what is best for the average man and woman. I have no regrets for the demise of recognised associations. I do not think any explanation was ever given as to who these might be, but last evening the Minister expressed the hope that if that portion of the section had not been deleted recognised associations would come into being charged with the spiritual welfare of the people, and I was apprehensive from his remarks that he might seek to have that portion of the Bill reinstated.

It is very easy to see the type of individual that would come into these recognised associations. You would have mobilised within them every publicity monger and scandal-giver in the community, people who seem to revel in ferreting out evil in the world and deliberately closing their eyes to what is good, and all the merit that is to be found if they only look for it. I think, to the extent that the Bill has been amended in that direction, it certainly is an improvement, and I hope that no attempt will be made to reinstate that very objectionable provision. As I said before, the type of person who will be appointed will be of considerable importance. It is to be hoped that no pressure will be brought upon the Minister in regard to the appointments to be made. There is a great danger, because of the agitation which we have seen conducted by a very small number of people, who, through being very voluble and violent in their language, make themselves appear legion, that they may go to the Minister and rather insist that he shall select or appoint people nominated by them. This country is blessed with more than its due quota of Pharisees and lay preachers. There are quite a number of self-appointed moral felon-setters who are bound to obtrude themselves when this Bill comes into operation. We have had the example of certain legal gentlemen, prominent members of religious societies, lecturing us at the annual meetings of these societies on faith and morals, and, at the same time, probably robbing their clients by excessive charges for most inefficient services. I have always a great suspicion—probably an unfounded one—when I see a lawyer coming forward as a person capable of speaking on faith, morals and ethics. I do not say that in any personal sense. I realise that the average man looks upon lawyers as just necessary evils, and very expensive ones at that, that he feels that a lawyer should keep to his own job—he charges very well for it—and not try to direct the morals of the people whom he will be fleecing the very next day.

There is behind the demand for this Bill a series of so-called religious publications belonging to the different Churches circulating in this country. From the nature of the language used in these it would seem as if they, at all events, hoped to escape attention from the new Censorship Board. While some of these publications are quite unobjectionable, and quite in accordance with Christian faith and Christian religion, although in some cases charity is not a strong feature of them, there are others run by lay Pharisees that are nothing more or less than libel sheets of a very pernicious character. They deceive the ordinary, average, ignorant reader into believing that they have the approval of the Church because they tack on themselves certain religious names—the so-and-so pictorial, or the so-and-so bulletin—and because they call themselves by religious names they deceive many people into the belief that they are orthodox publications approved by the authority of the Church, and that consequently what they say should have considerable moral weight. Sectarian bitterness and animosity are favoured and encouraged by these papers. They preach and practise a code that is as far removed from the Christian religion as barbarianism is divorced from civilisation. I know one monthly organ that calls itself by the name of an institution dear to Irish Catholics, and month after month it gives a large amount of space to the most venomous and uncalled for attacks on Irish workers generally, attacks supported by obvious lies and by half-truths. Now, the Founder of Christianity, when He set out to establish a Church that would live to the end of time, went to the workers. He went to the fishermen of Galilee and not to the Pharisees of Jerusalem, and this sheet, which is supposed to speak and propagate the doctrines He established gives a great portion of its space to denouncing those same workers, and everyone connected with them. There are certain organs of a so-called religious character on the other side that deliberately throw their columns open to everyone from this side of the Channel who wishes to write libels on any public man, and they circulate in this country. These will not come within the bounds of censorship, but I think it would be doing a good thing for the faith and morals of this country if some of these pestiferous insects were suppressed.

I think the principal and the most effective manner in which this Bill could operate is in regard to some of the Sunday papers. There is very little danger to the vast majority of our people in regard to the matter of books. In order to create harm in that respect you must first create a reading public, and there is no appreciable reading public in Ireland as far as books are concerned—there is no shadow of doubt about that—except the very cheap novelette, and that generally pretends that it is far worse than it is. It may come out with some glowing and sensational title like, "The Confessions of a Lady's Maid," or something of that kind, but generally it is most disappointing. There is not the slightest danger that the people who are shouting for protection from immoral literature are going to read any of the books that they themselves condemn. A lot of them talk about the works of Tolstoy and Balzac, and the chances are that they have never seen these books. Certainly the people they profess to save from the dangers of these books have rarely heard of them, and they certainly have not read them. I saw a list of periodicals that it was suggested should be suppressed, issued in the form of a very sensational document printed in red and black and headed, "Satan's Smut and Sin," which probably every member of this House has got, and if that were done I do not think there are a half dozen publications, weekly or daily, that would survive. I hope that type of mentality is not going to keep the Board incessantly at work. The Minister, of course, has power to use his discretion in regard to the suppression of publications, and I take the mentality that would encourage that sort of sweeping suppression would not have much consideration.

Although we only cater for the Free State we have a certain moral responsibility for people in Northern Ireland. I take it that Senator Comyn agrees that we should not forget our fellow-Catholics in the North. But if you suppress books here the surest way of getting publicity for them across the Border is to publish that fact far and wide and we will have the poor Catholics about whom the Senator is so anxious, absolutely unprotected. They will be allowed to purchase these books and to use their free will to devour the moral garbage they contain. I see no relief for that, it is a peril undoubtedly arising out of this measure.

The question of suppressing any papers coming in which give publicity to matters dealing with birth-control, presents one difficulty. It is, I think, fairly certain that in the next ten years a considerable amount of discussion will take place, even in the British Parliament, on that question. Will Irish papers be said to be advocating birth control if they publish any of these debates, or even a summary of them, or if they publish articles either in support or against that practice? I think it would be making us look absolutely ridiculous if our papers were absolutely prevented from publishing discussions on a controversy of that kind taking place somewhere else. Therefore, I think there would need to be some better definition of advocacy in a matter of that kind. The question of birth control has been dealt with by other Senators. In that connection I heard a statement made the other day which has probably a good deal of truth in it, that some of those who are loudest in their denunciations of it are the people who know all about it.

The question of expenses in connection with this Bill is, I take it, not a very serious matter. In any case, the object is so good that, I suppose, we do not mind what the expenses are. One way of helping to defray the expenses would be to auction to the highest bidder all the books that are being suppressed. Generally the amendments made in the other House have made it a measure which might have a very good effect, and certainly it will obviate many of the dangers that might otherwise have crept in as it was when introduced. Censorship is not very novel; it is practised in various places with varying degrees of success. We have introduced it in connection with films. We have a film censorship and a Film Censorship Board, and my experience of that Board is that you get brought to bear on the examination of films, which, after all, is not very different from examining books, a very wide judgment on the part of the main body of the Board, and invariably they are able to arrive at unanimous decisions. The arguments for and against are heard, and, in the main, you find fairly reasonable and equitable decisions. I hope it will be possible to find a Board here that will have the moral courage to decide what it thinks best. If the Board is composed of proper people who decide what they think best, irrespective of any clamour outside, it will be able to give satisfaction. We will have to wait to see how this Bill will work in practice. I do not know if it is intended that all the books published so far may be now reviewed. Of course, if that is the case, I can see the Censorship Board having the work of perhaps twenty years before it, if certain people get full consideration.

Mr. Hooper

The course of the debate has been an agreeable surprise to me. I confess that I came here to-day expecting formidable opposition to the Bill. So far we have had only two speeches against it. I think the Minister deserves our congratulations on the success the Bill has achieved so far, and on the small proportion to which opposition has shrunk. When we remember the wave of furious denunciation which was let loose against the measure at its introduction and on the head of the Minister, and when we listen now, shall I say, to the bleating tones of the critics, as compared with the fury of some months ago, the contrast is certainly very marked and very significant. I cannot persuade myself that it is due entirely to the changes made in the Bill. I do not agree with Senator Johnson, and Senator O'Farrell, and with one or two others who spoke to-day, of the, vast changes that have been made in the Bill. I agree entirely with what the Minister said yesterday, that the amendments introduced made no change in the main purpose and scope of the Bill. Consequently, I look for some other explanation of this remarkable change of attitude on the part of its critics. It seems to me that the real explanation is that the milder accents in which it is now criticised represent, as it were, a rear-guard action in which a section of the Bill's critics are trying to cover their retreat from a somewhat ignominious defeat. Of course, I would like to make it expressly clear that I do not include in that Senator Johnson or Senator O'Farrell, who certainly did not take part in the orgy of denunciation when the Bill was introduced. I refer entirely to another section of critics who not only denounced the Bill here, but carried the warfare across the water into other countries, and held up the Irish people to contumely and insult in the face of the world. People abroad were told in connection with this Bill that we are an ignorant people, that we are a nation of obscurantists, of ultra-montanes, a supine people, who were being led in this matter by narrow-minded and bigoted sectaries, and no opportunity was missed to blacken us in that respect.

It will probably be in the recollection of many here that some dozen or fifteen years ago, when a somewhat similar campaign was carried on in the political field, a leading English politician applied a very apt expression to those who were engaged in that campaign: he called them carrion crows. I would hesitate to apply those words to the critics that I now refer to, but whatever their intention was, the effect was practically the same. Their campaign has done great harm to Ireland, not only in the minds of foreign people but in the minds of some of our own people who live abroad, for amongst the protests received in connection with this Bill were some from members of our own race who were influenced by these great literary men, who availed of the audience they had in the foreign Press to attack this Bill, and who were influenced by them into the belief that we were as these men represented us to be, while not more than five per cent. of these people I suppose have seen the Bill or have read its provisions. That seems to me to be a disgraceful campaign and it is to these men that I refer when I say that their altered attitude now really represents an attempt to save their faces in a rout. Another thing I must confess that makes me impatient in this controversy is the tenderness that some of the Bill's critics show for the liberty of the Press. It is not so many years since the liberty of the Press in this country was really in danger, when papers were being suppressed, not singly but by the dozen, when newspaper proprietors and their employees were in danger of their lives, put into prison, and their newspaper offices blown up and burned because they expressed their sympathy with the national effort towards freedom. We heard very little then on this question of the liberty of the Press from those who are shouting so loudly about it in connection with this Bill. I cannot speak for journalists as a body but I know a good deal of the mentality of journalists, and I say that they are misrepresented by anybody who suggests that they are hostile to this Bill. When a somewhat similar Bill, though much more restricted, was passing through the British Parliament a few years ago, amongst the strongest elements supporting it were the official organisations of the British journalists. What was true of the British journalists then I say is true, in the main, of Irish journalists now.

A great deal of this literature which it is sought to keep out of this country is regarded by journalists as a degradation to their profession. It is not the journalists who want to push this stuff on the public; it is wealthy men who have no newspaper traditions, who come into newspaper life merely as they would go into the bacon trade, who think there is money in it, and who, in order to increase their millions, are prepared to pander to the lowest tastes of the public. I say that the average journalist has no sympathy with any procedure of that kind. This Bill does represent, to my mind, a reasonable and moderate method of dealing with a serious problem. To my mind, Senator Sir John Keane and others did not seem to show any realisation of the fact that there was a serious problem. Senator Sir John Keane thought this evil could be met by prosecutions before magistrates. Surely he ought to know it is because that procedure has failed utterly that this new method is to be tried. If you proceed before a magistrate whom are you to proceed against? You proceed against the bookseller. The magistrate before whom the case comes realises that it is very hard to ask the bookseller to act as a censor of every book he sells. Consequently, and very naturally, the magistrate takes a lenient view of the case, and you will not get punishment adequate to put down this evil. The only way to do it is by some comprehensive measure such as this. I say that the Minister has approached the subject in an admirable way. It is a good Bill. We cannot expect that it will completely cure the evil. Nothing we could devise will do that, but I believe this Bill will go a long way towards doing it.

Another thing with which I did not agree with Senator O'Farrell about is in respect of some of the amendments that were introduced in the Dáil. A particular one that he expressed delight upon was that which excluded the provision that only recognised associations should make complaints to the Censorship Board. I think that was a grave blunder. The recognised-associations provision would have greatly simplified the machinery of the Bill. What will happen now is that everyone in the country will be free to send up complaints. We have our own proportion of cranks, and every blessed one of them will be sending up complaints now about every little book. The Minister will have to buy every book. He will have to buy them by the dozen. All his officials will be set examining them and writing letters to the complainants, and the result, in my opinion, will be that his Department will be choked with these complaints, most of them trivial, and that really serious complaints will be delayed. Senator O'Farrell expressed the hope that there would be no attempt to reintroduce that provision. There will be an attempt. Certainly if no one else puts down an amendment to that effect, I will do so. Perhaps it is impertinent to say it, but it seems to me that in the Dáil the change was made without a proper understanding of the matter. Another point which seems to me to be worthy of consideration in Committee will be that respecting the majority by which the prohibition recommendation will be made. I think that that question has been approached from the wrong angle altogether. It should not be approached from the angle of the size of the majority, but rather from the size of the minority. As things stand now, if seven men are not present at a meeting of the Censorship Board, and if all those who are present agree to make a recommendation prohibiting circulation, no such recommendation can be made. It might be that one member of the Board will be on holidays somewhere in Europe or somewhere further away, another may fall ill, and thus one single person on the Board opposing the prohibition order would nullify the opinion of all the rest. There are some other points that I would like to deal with, but I will not delay the House now. I congratulate the Minister on the way in which the opposition has almost vanished, and I hope the Bill will go through triumphantly.

Mr. Barrington

I think on this Bill we are entitled to more information, especially as regards the last clause of it. Everybody is fully aware that there is in the country at present a great cry for economy. My mind is, to a certain extent, relieved by the statement that the members of the Board are not to be paid. The Bill is quite silent on that subject. But there will be a very considerable amount of expense to be incurred, and I should like to know from the Minister what that expenditure has been estimated to amount to and whether it would not be possible by means of fines, or by some method of that sort, to make the Bill pay its own expenses.

Mr. Douglas

The discussion on this Bill has, I think, been of a totally different character because of the very considerable change in the Bill which took place in the Dáil. My personal point of view was somewhat different to most of those who have spoken. I suppose that I am a Puritan, or was brought up one, at any rate, and I believe that a very real problem does exist. I think it probably exists less in Ireland than in most countries, but I believe the problem of the spread of genuinely indecent and pornographic literature is really an international problem, and one which is only being dealt with now, to some extent, because of the action of the Committee of the League of Nations. I believe that if there is to be international co-operation substantial powers for dealing with this problem must be in the hands of the Government of each State which comprises the League. I therefore viewed this whole idea from the point of view that I was in favour of an adequate method of censoring indecent literature. Senator Hooper suggested that there was something unreal in the attitude of those who said that the Bill, as introduced originally, and the Bill as we have it now, had completely changed their point of view. I would like particularly to refer to that attitude of Senator Hooper. I, for one, while favourable to the idea of censorship, believe that the original Bill as introduced, with the definitions which seem to me to be the crux of the Bill, provided for a censorship of opinion, and not simply for a censorship of indecent literature, and for that reason I would have opposed and voted against the original Bill. I am not sure that this Bill is yet quite satisfactory, but I will not vote against it, partly because of the amendments, and more still because of the general attitude in the discussions in the Dáil, which made it clear that there was a full majority in the Dáil opposed to using the censorship as a censorship of opinion, whether religious, political or otherwise.

Now, it seems to me that if there is to be a censorship in a healthy, free State that censorship should be the minimum necessary, not the maximum, and that a Bill of this kind should be examined, not to see how much you can include, and how much you can censor, but to see that just enough powers are given to your Board to deal with the real problem and not to deal with anything else. There are, for instance, censorship powers in Australia. I am not conversant with the details of their Act. I believe it was intended to deal with indecent literature, but I know that it was used to prevent literature advocating Irish independence from getting into Australia. That we know to be an actual fact. It is comparatively easy to use Censorship Acts for purposes far and away outside their scope, and it was my honest opinion, which I believe is shared by a great many others, that the Bill with this definition, as introduced, left itself open to an extent of evil which was far greater than the amount of good which it might do. I think that Senator Hooper is quite wrong in his belief that the attitude of a number of people here to the Bill has changed because they were afraid of that attitude. It is rather because they sincerely believe that the Bill now is, at any rate, much more in the shape of a Bill to deal with the problem which it purports to deal with. I want to emphasise that, because I think that some of the Senator's remarks would lead to a considerable amount of misunderstanding.

There is one thing that I was rather sorry Senator Sir John Keane referred to, but as he has referred to it I also would like to do so. He suggested that the idea of a censorship, that is, the idea of suppressing evil, was Roman Catholic, as distinct from the opposite idea of allowing full freedom, which was Protestant. I totally and absolutely disagree with him. I do not know how far it may be true of a certain section in Ireland, but it is not true of Ireland as a whole. I have travelled on four occasions in the United States. On the first occasion I travelled over in connection with my own Church, and I lived almost entirely among Protestants. On the three other occasions I was entertained by and lived with Catholics all the time. I found that a very large number of Protestants are puritan; they are against freedom of expression of opinion, religious or otherwise. The Catholic Church and its adherents in America have opposed the censorship idea; they have opposed prohibition, and they have opposed restrictions of all kinds. I only mention that to suggest that I do not, in this matter of State interference, believe that it runs on religious lines at all.

To come to a few of the minor matters dealt with in this Bill, I personally believe that the attitude of this House to the Bill should be to examine it carefully to see that it deals with only one problem, and to see that it is open to as little abuse as possible. Any Bill might be open to abuse, but I think it is possible to pass this Bill in such a form that, unless a Government comes into power which deliberately sets out to appoint a Board largely for the purpose of abusing the Bill, the Bill will be used for the purpose for which it is intended. The definition of indecency is vastly improved, but I would like to know from the Minister what the second part of the definition means—"in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave." It seems to me—I am quite open to conviction on the matter—that the first part of the definition covers the whole thing. I do not quite know what "similar way to corrupt or deprave" means. There may be other things which make that necessary, and I am quite open to conviction, but unless a really good case is made for having these words I think it would be much better to leave them out. I am going on the basis that I believe the Bill should be the minimum and not the maximum.

I do not believe, with Senator Hooper, that the re-insertion of the provision for recognised associations would be any gain. He is afraid that a very large number of persons will apply. That could be checked by having a small fee, and that might be a desirable way of dealing with it. But I would go further and say that even if a very large number of persons do send in books it might be, to some extent, a good thing, because, and I think it is a very important factor, in considering the raison d'être for a Bill of this kind we have admittedly had in Ireland unreasonable demands for censorship. Foolish people have wanted to burn books that no reasonably-minded man wants to see destroyed, and I think that the best way to combat that unreasonable point of view is to make it comparatively easy to have books censored, at any rate in the first year or so, and if you have a sound, sensible Board, such as one can reasonably hope can be set up, and if they act within the scope of the Bill, I am not at all sure that that will not be the proper cure for an evil which I think has been growing here.

I am not quite sure with regard to one thing that Senator Hooper said, but it seems to me that he suggested that certain members of this House had used this Bill to defame the people of this country. I cannot think of any member of this House who has been going about making speeches about this Bill. I went over their names, and I cannot think of one. I myself have never spoken or written about this Bill until now. My name was, in some papers, coupled with the name of the iniquitous Professor Tierney, and it was said that I would naturally be opposed to this Bill, but up to this I have never opened my mouth about it. I think that Senator Hooper's statement was very much exaggerated, because I do not believe there were members of this House who used this Bill to defame the people of this country. I think if anyone defamed the people it was those who over-exaggerated the need for the Bill, who gave the impression that there was a great deal of immoral literature in Ireland, and I am positive that that is not true. I think the greatest demand was for dealing with the unhealthy Press, and in connection with that, I very much welcome the statement made by Senator Hooper with regard to journalists, which I am sure is absolutely true, and I think it is very well that that view was expressed in the Oireachtas.

I would like to say that I agree with Senator Johnson. Either that or you must leave this matter to the initiative of the Minister, who will go to the courts if an offence, or a supposed offence, has taken place—and I really believe that if the Minister were to act in accordance with the demands, or even a small portion of the demands, at present being made, and were to bring all kinds of books, once they were sold, before the magistrates in different parts of the country, we would run far greater risk of the suppression of books which ought to be allowed to circulate than we will by having them carefully considered by a Board, provided, of course, that a very substantial proportion of the Board gives its assent before a book is censored. In conclusion, my view is that there is no case for reducing the number of the Board, because I believe that the indecent and pornographic books that, according to the Minister, this Bill is intended to deal with are books on which you would get ninety-nine people out of a hundred to censor, and those about which there is a real difference of opinion ought not to be censored.

Mr. Farren

It appears to me that there is no member of this House opposed to giving this Bill a Second Reading. As far as I could hear, every member of the House who spoke has agreed that some form of censorship is necessary. Even Senator Sir John Keane, who led the attack on the Bill, admitted, I think, that there were some publications that it was undesirable young people should read, and if he admitted that he admitted that there is a need for a censorship of some kind. We start off, then, with the fact that there is unanimity among all sections of the House that some form of censorship is required to deal with the position as we find it to-day. But Senator Sir John Keane, in opening the attack, took advantage of the measure to make the boastful claim that we are getting tired of listening to now, of the monopoly that the minority in this country hold with regard to their love of literature and art. He went further, and he told us that the clients and the patrons of literature and art were almost wholly within the minority section that he represents and that he spoke for to-day. I thought that we had got away from that stage; I thought that Senator Sir John Keane and those who are associated with him were very foolish to be reminding us of these facts, because if we accepted that principle and acted on the doctrine of the predecessors of those people who claim this monopoly of wealth and all these things—the doctrine that might was right—we might dispossess them and take back our own that was stolen from us. I think it is most unwise for Senator Sir John Keane and people like him to be reminding us of our foolishness in allowing them to hold their ill-gotten gains. He claims—and it is not the first time I heard the claim made in this House—that the minority section had a monopoly of the intelligence in this country. We had trotted out here before all about the great people in the minority section, their great love of literature and art, and the genius that they possess. Well, if Senator Sir John Keane claims the type of genius that produces blasphemous documents like "To-morrow," he is welcome to them; we have no desire to claim such geniuses. If nothing else were published in this country in recent years than that blasphemous document it would be sufficient to warrant a Censorship Board of some kind.

Senator Sir John Keane talked about freedom, and said that we were treading on the Constitution by the introduction of this Bill, but he altogether forgot that some time ago the Oireachtas gave power for the setting up of a Film Censorship Board, and we were told by one of the members of that Board to-day that it was an excellent one, that every film that came before it was dealt with in a broadminded way. If that is so, is it impossible to set up a similar Board under this Bill that will deal with business that comes before it in the same broadminded way? If there is a necessity for a film censor and a board to review films, surely there is also a necessity for a board to review these foul publications that are being put into the hands of people here. The way to criticise this question is to ask every father or mother if they are prepared to allow some of the publications that are being scattered broadcast through this country to get into the hands of their children, or the little ones of fifteen or sixteen years of age. That is the test to put to them. Every one of them will admit that they could not allow these foul publications to get into the hands of their children, and if that is the answer they will give to you, some steps are necessary to deal with the traffic in this filthy garbage. The Bill contains the minimum powers that ought to be given to deal with this question. Nobody has denied that some form of censorship is necessary, and this Bill contains the very minimum powers that ought to be given for that purpose. As Senator Hooper has said, some time ago there was not much complaint about the freedom of the Press when papers were being suppressed. I remember that some years ago some publications that were printed in other countries were not allowed to be circulated in this country, and there was no protest from the guardians and the champions of the Press.

Some years ago the circulation of the "Gaelic American" was not allowed in this country, not because it contained anything of an immoral nature, but because it advocated the fulfilment of the aspirations of the Irish people, because it supported the national ideal that was looked forward to by the people. We did not hear any complaint from the champions of the freedom of the Press in those days, but when this attempt is made to keep out filthy garbage that is circulated in this country every week we hear about the freedom of the Press. Some months ago there were delivered into my letter-box three or four copies of the supplement of a Sunday newspaper containing the opening chapters of a serial story which this highly respectable newspaper proposed to publish, a paper that is owned by a gentleman with a very high title. These copies contained the foulest and the filthiest stuff that man was every asked to print, the foulest stuff that was ever put on paper. This was put into practically every letter-box in Dublin to induce the people to buy the paper, to become weekly readers of such filth as this. There is no decent-minded man or woman who would allow that paper to circulate in this country, and surely it is not asking too much for the Minister to come forward and say that he wants powers, if necessary, to prevent the circulation of such literature. I think that the Minister has asked for the minimum, and that this House will support him in getting the Bill through. I do not want to deal with questions that were raised by Senator Sir John Keane with regard to different methods of dealing with this thing, because it might not be good for Senator Sir John Keane if we did make a comparison about freedom of thought or anything else. Senator Sir John Keane put before us the different methods—the Protestant method and others. I do not like to interfere in these things, but I think it is unfair to have them introduced into a House of this kind, but if we did refer to them, and if we spoke about the complaints of the empty churches, about which we read so frequently, in the great Protestant countries it might explain the difference in our point of view. I say no more about that, because I think these questions should not be introduced on a Bill of this kind. I say that the Minister is entitled to support for this Bill, and if any amendments are put forward that will strengthen it I will wholeheartedly support them.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney)

Before I deal with the speeches which have been directed against the Second Reading of this Bill, I would like, shortly, to refer to a couple of points which were made by Senators who spoke in favour of the Second Reading. Senator Douglas and several others asked me what the cost of this Bill would be. It would be impossible for me to form any opinion now as to what the cost will come to, because we have to see it working for some time before it is known what staff will be required. You will have your Board of Censors, and it will depend entirely upon the number of complaints which come in as to what staff will be required to handle and deal with them. But there will be no expense except expense in connection with the staff, and I do not expect there will be a very large staff, because anybody who sends in a complaint under the rules in contemplation will have to send in a copy of the book of the newspaper of which he complains. Otherwise it will not be dealt with. It will be no use for a man to draw up a long list of books from the beginning of the world down to the present time and say: "Kindly censor these books."

Mr. Douglas

Will he have to send nine copies?

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Well, no, not nine. He certainly will have to send a certain number of copies. Of course, that in a way is a fortunate thing, because it will prevent complaints coming from a great many cranky persons. On the other hand, it may stop a certain number who otherwise would send in complaints. But there is this much also to be said in its favour, that no one can complain unless he has actually read the book himself. If he has bought the book himself he could send it in to be censored without extra expense. I think the recognised associations would have had a little fund of their own which would have enabled them to purchase the necessary books. Senator Douglas said that as the Bill was originally introduced it meant a censorship of opinion.

Mr. Douglas

I said it could be used for a censorship of opinion.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I think if the Senator read my speech when I introduced the Bill——

Mr. Douglas

On a point of order. I did not say that the Minister's speech said so; I said that the Bill, in my opinion, could be used for that purpose.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

If the Senator read my speech he would have seen that that was not so. However, that is rather past history. What we have to deal with at the moment is the Bill as it stands, rather than anything else. I was glad, however, to hear Senator O'Farrell, who was the only Senator who spoke who has a practical experience of censorship, with the exception of Senator Mrs Wyse Power, who did not speak, say that he believed that the number of five was superior to nine. I think so too. I also think it would be easier to get five unpaid persons than nine unpaid persons because the work will involve a considerable tax on people's leisure. We may not be able to get a large censorship board of suitable persons, and we may have to fall back on unsuitable persons if we cannot get suitable persons. That is a consideration which I am sure will appeal to the Seanad.

These are a few of the points that were raised by Senators who spoke in favour of the Bill. Senator Gogarty, who spoke in favour of the Bill, made a statement that I cannot allow to pass unchecked. He said that this Bill was drafted by two barristers, that it was their creation and that that was the origin of the Bill. That is not so. The origin of the Bill was the report sent in by the Committee that was set up some years ago on which there was not a single barrister. On that report the Bill was drafted in the ordinary fashion by the Parliamentary draftsman. As far as the merits or demerits of the Bill are concerned, the present administration and the Minister in charge stand over it. It is our responsibility and is due to us and no one else. The attack on the Bill was made by two Senators, Senator Sir John Keane and Senator Bagwell. Senator Sir John Keane described the Bill as a new departure in hygiene. He declared seemingly that this censorship of indecency in literature and indecency in periodical publications is an entirely new principle and that everybody should be left free to buy or to see anything he likes. Senator Sir John Keane is a great number of years too late in preaching that doctrine. He should have preached it before the Indecent Advertisement Act was passed many years ago. If this Bill is an undue and an improper infringement upon the liberty of the subject to read what he likes so was it an infringement on the liberty of the subject to prevent him issuing advertisements for other people to read.

Senator Sir John Keane, I think, in a great number of ways, made a very unhappy speech. He endeavoured to bring in a species of religious controversy into this matter. He declared that he was speaking for an intelligent, educated body. What body he was speaking for he did not tell us. He told us he was speaking for some educated body. In the course of his peroration he compared Catholicism and Protestantism. I take it that he meant that he was speaking on behalf of the Protestant Church. I do not think that he was. I am pretty sure that he was not. I think it was very unfair to members of the Dáil who are Protestants in religion, and who are possibly just as good Protestants as Senator Sir John Keane, who considered that they could vote for this measure, as well as to Senators who belong to the same religion as Senator Sir John Keane. Yet they have not chosen him as the spokesman of their religious beliefs. For my part I cannot see how religion could possibly enter into a matter of this kind. After all is it not part of every religion that indecency is wrong? Are not the Ten Commandments as binding upon the Protestant as upon the Catholic conscience? Is it any worse for a Catholic to fall morally than it is for a Protestant to fall morally in the eyes of his own Church? Is there any difference in what tends to demoralise a Catholic and in what tends to demoralise a Protestant? Surely this question of religion does not enter in at all. Senator Sir John Keane says that the Protestant idea —that has already been contradicted here—is that you are to face up and overcome all evil. I wonder if Senator Sir John Keane has ever heard of the prayer which says "Lead us not into temptation." The Senator's idea seems to be—let there be any amount of temptation. He seems to think that temptation is no harm, and that poor human nature is so tremendously strong that it does not matter whether it is tempted or whether it is not tempted. He seems to think that these books and papers which this Bill deals with, and which are plainly a temptation to human nature, are absolutely no harm and that persons should be so strong and should be so fully grounded that the possibility of their falling into sin should not exist.

During the whole of his speech Senator Sir John Keane was most inconsistent. He said one thing at one moment and another thing a moment after. He seemed to have a desire to attack this Bill and to attack it from every angle, quite regardless as to whether his arguments were or were not destructive one of the other. For instance, he did not by any means at any time make it clear to me as to whether he thought that there was no evil in existence or whether he thought that the evil was so terribly big that it was impossible to check it. At one moment he seemed to say one thing and at another moment another. He said that if there was a censorship in existence "Mrs. Warren's Profession" would never have been published. At the next moment he admitted that that particular work had been censored by the Lord Chamberlain. He told us that we ought to have no Board of Censors, but that we should simply make use of the ordinary machinery of the courts and prosecute with regard to the sale of these objectionable books because, he said, if you have a censorship board there must be a list of those prohibited books published and that will do harm outside the country. In the same breath he told us that there was a prosecution recently in England, the result of which was enormously to increase the sale of a particular book at 15/- a copy. Right through his entire attack on the Bill he heaped inconsistency upon inconsistency.

Senator Bagwell followed upon somewhat the same lines as Senator Sir John Keane. His main argument was that freedom of thought was essential for the progress of this world. I want to know how freedom of thought is interfered with by this Bill. In what particular section of this Bill would Senator Bagwell say he sees there is interference with freedom of thought?

Mr. Bagwell

If I said freedom of thought that was not what I intended to say. What I intended to say was freedom in the dissemination of thought, or in other words freedom in the circulation of thought.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

What is in this Bill which prevents that? Leaving out birth control, there is absolutely nothing in the Bill which in any way prohibits the free circulation of thought except it happens to be pornographic. It is going to be a bar upon progress because indecency in expression and in thought is banned! Which is going to make more for progress? As far as this question of birth control is concerned, exactly the same principle comes in. Not alone is it the doctrine of the Catholic Church that birth control is against the great natural law, but the natural law is binding upon every man who comes into this world.

Mr. Bagwell

I must not be taken as assenting to what the Minister says that there is no danger that the dissemination of any thought except pornographic thought is prohibited by this Bill. I entirely deny that. I suggest to the Minister, though I am sure he did not do it intentionally, that that is not a fair way to put it, because obviously a book can be condemned for having something in it which is not as nice as it should be. A book which may contain a quantity of very valuable thought may be condemned because there appears in some particular part of it something which is objectionable.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I am afraid the Senator has not carefully read the Bill, because if there is only a mere casual expression the book would not be condemned, and no sensible Board of Censors would condemn it quite apart from a casual expression. On this question of birth control, I have read recently a discussion which took place in the Church Union of England and in which I saw as clear and strong a denunciation of birth control as ever I have seen anywhere. I have the actual statement here. The quotation is as follows:—

Birth control is a great evil which the Church (that is, the Church of England) will have to face sooner or later. There would be a tremendous Nemesis for they could not break God's law and frustrate nature without suffering afterwards.

That is a clear expression of strong Protestant views at some Church Congress. I happened also to see an equally strong denunciation of birth control by the Church of England Bishop of Durham, so that the idea that the condemnation of birth control is confined to Catholics only is not correct, and the Catholic view is that it is against nature and is wrong, and I believe that is the view of the overwhelming majority of people in this country of all classes and shades of religious belief. I am rather sorry that questions of religion were pulled into this matter, because all through history it has followed, as it must follow, that the nation which does not progress goes backwards, and that the nation that falls off in population falls off in everything, and it is undoubtedly a safe thing to say that great nations do commit race suicide. This is not a new problem. You have only to look at the decay of one of the greatest nations of the world. France cannot keep up its population and Italy is coming in to keep up its population. The greatest nation in the world, as many people would think, is steadily dying out with loss to mankind. That is an evil we are not going to have in this country. It is because that evil is going to be checked I believe that the majority of the Seanad will support this Bill more than for any other reason.

Question put and declared carried.

Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 25th April.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 11 Apr 1929

Censorship of Publications Bill, 1928—Second Stage (Resumed).

Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 11 Apr 1929