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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Dec 1942

Vol. 27 No. 2

Censorship of Publications—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That, in the opinion of Seanad Eireann, the Censorship of Publications Board appointed by the Minister for Justice under the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929, has ceased to retain public confidence, and that steps should be taken by the Minister to reconstitute the board.—(Senator Sir John Keane).

Before I resume my argument, I should like to draw your attention, A Chathaoirligh, to the Official Report of the debate on the last occasion and to ask a question. The passages read by Senator Sir John Keane from the Tailor and Ansty are, of course, very properly not reported. The formula is used: “The Senator quoted from the book.” It happened that in the opening of my reply I quoted from the jacket, or what is commonly called by the publishers, the blurb of the book and the same formula is used in substitution for my quotation. As there was nothing that could offend the most delicate ear in the passage which I read from the blurb, I feel myself left open to the misinterpretation by readers of the Official Report, either now or by and by, that I, too, read out objectionable matter. It is for the purpose of having it in the Official Report that I make this explanation, and that I am troubling you now with these remarks.

In the supervision of the report of the debate, the Chair applied a similar principle to the blurb as to the book, and quotations from either were excised.

I understand, then, that the rule was that nothing quoted from the banned book was to be put down on the records?

Quotations were not to be published. The blurb and the book were taken as one for the purpose of that decision.

Thank you very much.

I was dealing with the reiterated charge against the Censorship Board, that it had horrified the public with the enormity of its offence, that it had banned as indecent—more frequently than not the remark was "banned on the grounds of indecency"—a book which had been approved by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster—occasionally there was substituted "the Westminster Synod". Here, it was said, was a Catholic author, a man of eminence in England, known as the Catholic champion against birth control, and his book was published by an eminent Catholic firm, and these fools and asses, these men who, in the eloquent language of Mr. Seán O Faoláin to the Irish Times, made “fools of themselves and an ass of the Minister”—or “a fool of the Minister and asses of themselves”—in condemning it. Now, that went through practically every newspaper in Ireland. I could produce, if required, cuttings to show no fewer than five of them from one source—“Our Correspondent in Dublin”. Unless that were rebutted, unless that were taken in detail and refuted, the board undoubtedly would lie under a pall of misunderstanding, followed by condemnation from all the people who have read these criticisms. I am saying that by way of apology beforehand for being rather long. It is a matter of detail, and detail is always tedious except in competent hands.

I have said already, in my previous statement, that we did not ban a book, on the grounds of indecency, which bore the imprimatur of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster or of any other Bishop.

I have heard complaints that the reporters cannot hear the speeches at all while there is a conversation carried on in the Front Benches. We can hear it over here. I would ask Senators to refrain from conversation.

I am sure that reference to the matter will be quite sufficient.

I have already exhibited the book to the Chair and to the House, to show that the work sent in with the complaint has no imprimatur of any Bishop, no nihil obstat of any censor, no permissu superiorum, no formula of any kind indicative of Church approval. Not only that, but on the title page of the book there is no indication that it is by a medical man or that it is a medical work. It is a collection of essays. As a matter of fact, some of them are exceedingly interesting. The title is Laws of Life, by Halliday Sutherland, published by Sheed and Ward, 1935. I have said that, at the time that this complaint was submitted to the board, there were, in point of fact, a second edition and later impressions of the second edition. As enquiry reveals, this second edition, and the further impressions of it, do bear the words “permissu superiorum, 28th July, 1936”, over the inscription “first published, November, 1935”.

The book was not condemned as indecent, or, as Deputy Dillon, in the passages I read out, said, "on the grounds of indecency". It was banned for indecency within the meaning of the Act —a very important difference, as I hope to show. The Title of the Act under which we are appointed, and under which we work, and to the terms of which we adhere with the utmost strictness is: "An Act to make provision for the prohibition of the sale and distribution of unwholesome literature." The charge has been made repeatedly that we defy the Act and disregard its requirements. Why, there would be less to be said against us if we were not so rigorously compliant with the terms of the Act. The policy of the Government, of which Mr. Cosgrave was President, and the policy of the present Government that succeeded it, is to protect the people of this State from the influx of "unwholesome literature".

One of the unpleasant, unhappy and highly regrettable phenomena of postwar days in England-as has also happened in the history of other countries after great wars or national emergencies-is the breakdown of the old standards. It is a breakdown, not merely of the old standards of morality. It has, of recent years, become the practice of even the most highly respectable publishers to put on the market books for which they would have been prosecuted a few years ago, and for which-as I will show-they may still be prosecuted. This is the policy adopted deliberately by both Governments-to "prohibit the sale and distribution of unwholesome literature".

As I have explained already-but, for purposes of continuity, perhaps I might be permitted to repeat it briefly-in Great Britain the Secretary of State for Home Affairs corresponds, in relation to these matters, with the Minister for Justice in our State. There is no censorship, as understood by the word censorship everywhere in England; but the Secretary of State receives frequently -I will quote later on the words of a former Secretary of State-complaints about books, prints and other obscene matter, and submits them to advisers to consider what should be done under this Act, which is repealed in our Act -the Obscene Publications Act, 1857. According to the advice he gets, the Attorney-General is communicated with and the Director of Public Prosecutions then directs a prosecution. The standards in England with regard to obscene literature-standards legally enforced and enforceable—are precisely the standards which we have here in our Act, and which our Censorship of Publications Board follow to the letter. There is no question of a difference of standards. So far as regards the legal attitude of both States to obscene prints and publications, there is identity. That I ask the House to bear in mind. The machinery for dealing with obscene literature and obscene prints is different in the two countries. As I have just explained, in the case of England there is a prosecution.

We heard a lot from Senator Sir John Keane the other day about Victorian prudery. Victorian prudery, he suggested, was the guiding spirit of our office in Ely Place. The 21st November is not a very far-away date. With your permission, I propose to quote from the Publishers' Circular and Booksellers' Record, of November 21, 1942. I beg the Senator's close attention to this, for here is an instance of how they act in the spiritual home of the Senator, where all is perfect and all is well, as contrasted with this wretched, miserable country, with its literary Gestapo of which he speaks. The heading is “Obscene Books Prosecution”. In November, they prosecuted people in England for publishing obscene books! Let us see what they do with those who publish obscene books.

"Books dealing with sex problems were the subject of prosecution at Cornwall Assizes recently, at which Ralph Hellyer Clemoes, aged 38, his wife, Lillian Lavina, aged 35, and the company of which they are the directors and co-shareholders, the Economy Educator Service, Limited, of Mount Folly, Bodmin, were the accused."

I shall cut this short—but, perhaps, if I do, the Senator will complain. Clemoes pleaded guilty to three charges and not guilty to a fourth. His wife pleaded not guilty in each instance, but the company admitted the first three charges, pleading not guilty only to the fourth. Mr. J. Lhind Pratt, who was counsel for the prosecution, accepted the pleas of guilty and offered no evidence in the charges to which there was a plea of not guilty. I quote from the report:—

"For the defence, Mr. J.D. Casewell, K.C., said that Clemoes accepted full responsibility. He started in business in 1925 but it was not until 1933 that he dealt in any books on sex. He had no desire to circulate anything that was obscene in the eyes of the law, but he was not an expert in such matters and had not read some of the books. One of the books, counsel pointed out, had many favourable opinions printed on its cover."——

Exactly like the book from which Senator Sir John Keane quoted on the last day. Mr. Justice Macnaghten comments upon that:

"I cannot believe that anyone who wrote a favourable review of this book read the passages set out in the particulars. It is incredible."

I adopt those words with regard to the reviews of two of our book and I can give instances in a proper place with regard to the book in which Senator Sir John Keane could see nothing objectionable but in relation to which Victorian prudery did object to one sentence. I continue to quote from the report:

"Mr. Caswell, continuing, said his client had not dealt in any book in respect of which there had been a prosecution and persons who dealt in such books had to be guided by whether or not the authors and publishers were reputable."

I stop here to draw a parallel. That is what the reviewer does for the bookseller. The reviewer tells him the names of the publisher and author. If the author is a person of repute, if he is an eminent Catholic publicist and if the publishers are eminent Catholic publishers, then, of course, the unfortunate bookseller stocks the books and finds himself in Queer Street. I resume the reading:

"Mr. Justice Macnaghten: Let me say here and now that persons who do that do it at their own peril. They are taking upon themselves to circulate for their own profit that which may do infinite harm. It is no answer to any criminal charge here to say we did not look inside or know that it contained the poison."

The old plea. Again I resume the reading:

"In passing sentence of 12 months' imprisonment on Clemoes and ordering him to pay £100 towards the cost of the prosecution, a fine of £100 being imposed also upon the company, the judge said: ‘Your case is not the only case of obscenity that comes up for trial here. Of the 12 other prisoners who will stand after you in the dock, no fewer than five stand charged with cases of obscenity. You have published obscene words. They did obscene acts. Whether he who incites the obscenity or he who commits obscenity is the worse, it is not necessary to inquire. Both deserve and receive the contempt of mankind and both deserve and must receive punishment when brought to book."

The date of that publication is November 21. These are not Victorian days; it is practically to-day. We are told that the Board of Censorship operating under this Act, from which I am quoting, are back in Victorian days. We are men who, owing to senile decay, are not aware of the facts of life around and about us, even if we were ever capable of forming correct judgment upon these things. That is, in short, one of the accusations launched by Senator Sir John Keane against us. My standards do not date back to Queen Victoria's days; they date back to Moses. The standards under which we operate go back to 1,500 years or so before Christ. If the Senator cares to accuse us of being old-fashioned, I am pleading guilty: I am so old-fashioned as to take my standards of life and conduct from Mount Sinai and not from Seán This and Seán That, whose books have been banned.

Returning to the Act, it is an Act to prohibit the sale and distribution of unwholesome literature. There is how they deal with it on common law and statute law in England. We have a different machinery—the censorship. But the idea is the same; the machinery alone, as I have said, is different.

This law here, the Act of 1929, prescribes what is to be done in the case of the publication and circulation in this State of an alleged obscene book. Either of two things takes place. Some one complains of the book to the Minister for Justice under regulations laid down, Orders that have gone through the usual routine of lying on the Table of the House and have become law incorporated with the Act. But the board itself, under sub-section (5) of Section 6 "may at any time make to the Minister a report in respect of any book, or any particular edition of any book, although no complaint in regard to such book or edition has been referred to them by the Minister," and, in considering the making of a report under this sub-section, they must do everything precisely as they would do if the book had been complained of in the first instance to the Minister and was then submitted by him to the board. No one has any idea of how many complaints come to the board in this way and are dealt with under sub-section (5) of Section 6.

According to these writers—it is really absurd of me, I admit, to refer to them at all—we are engaged in nosing out indecency. That is the beautiful way in which accusation is made of our action under sub-section (5) of Section 6. The Irish Times on one occasion had an editorial note, or the equivalent of an editorial note, to this effect: If the censors would only spare time from the reading of dirty books to read the Act they would find what mistakes they have made. As it happened, it was the Irish Times, by the way, that made the mistake and they apologised for it. But, in a leading article on the debate of the last day, they returned to the charge, which shows that in an interval of some years they themselves have not taken the trouble to read the Act. They spoke about the criminality of the Minister—the word “criminality” is, of course, a summary, not an actual quotation—of the Minister and his minions committing illegalities by banning periodicals, the larger part or an undue part of which was given over to the publication of crime, especially sex crimes. That is in the Act. That is one of the prescriptions of the Act, that magazines, periodicals, that contain an undue amount of space devoted to crime, especially sex crime, are to be banned. I mention that incidentally to show you the utter want of an elementary sense of responsibility which you find in some who undertake to teach the public on matters of public concern. I couple with them Senator Sir John Keane, who also could have escaped a great many blunders that he committed if he had not been so keen on the scent, or rather, so keen on the chase without the scent.

I think when the Senator makes these general charges he ought to quote them.

I shall quote every one of them, with your permission, Sir.

Will you quote what I said?

I will not quote until I reach the point at which it is appropriate to quote. The Senator was allowed to get away with frequent interruptions. On reading the Official Report, I find that on two or three occasions some of us over here were diverted from our line of argument altogether by his persistent course of interruption. I will give chapter and verse for what I am saying, the Senator may rest assured of that. I make no charge for which I cannot give chapter and verse. I made that a rule of life many years ago and I will not be tempted to break it for such a paltry thing as scoring a point over a brother Senator. The Senator, who has accused my colleagues and me of dishonesty, of mala fides, has little right to complain of verbal inaccuracies, if there be any. I think in the eyes of all decent men he has stripped himself of the protection that would go to a man pleading an honest mistake. He has called us Gestapo. He knows surely what that meant. If he does not, I will enlighten him with the permission of the Chair.

This is the work in question—Laws of Life—which was submitted to us and examined by virtue of sub-section (5) of Section 6. I am going to read from page 12 of it.

[Here the Senator quoted from the book.]

You need not go back to 1910, because that was the state of Piccadilly and other public streets in London at a recent date.

[Again the Senator quotes.]

How comes it that the professional has been replaced? The book is very valuable in regard to items of that kind.

[The Senator quotes.]

I beg the House to note the last factor contributing towards the social change.

[The Senator quotes.]

Now, in studying this book carefully, I have regard to that lecture on Obscene Literature—Law and Practice, by Sir Edward Tindal Atkinson, K.C.B., C.B.E., director of public prosecutions.

This, as I explained when I made the first reference to the work, was a lecture delivered by special request of the University of London, and to that University's Law School. The date is not early Victorian—it is October 1st, 1936. It is a very clear exposition of the law as it operates in Great Britain, so far as the criminal law is concerned, and, with your permission, Sir, I shall read, from this book, extracts to show what considerations of law worked in our minds in regard to the report that we made upon this book. Here, let me remind the House that the statutory duties in regard to a book, either submitted to us by the Minister, or coming direct from a member or members of the board, are covered by sub-section (2) of Section 6 of the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929, which says:

"The board shall consider every complaint referred to them by the Minister under this section and for the purpose of such consideration shall examine the book or the particular edition of the book which is the subject of such complaint, and on the completion of such consideration the board shall make to the Minister their report on such complaint."

And sub-section (6) of that section says that:

"Whenever the board under this section makes a report, not dissented from by more than one and assented to by at least three members of the board, stating that, in the opinion of the board, the book or the particular edition of a book which is the subject of such report is in its general tendency indecent or obscene and should for that reason be prohibited, the Minister may by order...prohibit the sale and distribution in Saorstát Eireann of such book or of such edition of a book."

Now, it is laid down there that the board shall consider every complaint referred to them by the Minister, and, under sub-section (6), are laid down the formulary in which such a report should be made. That is contained in sub-section (6) of Section 6 of the Act of 1929, which says that "whenever the board makes a report... stating that in the opinion of the board the book or the particular edition of a book which is the subject of such report, is in its general tendency indecent or obscene and should for that reason be prohibited". There is the method of procedure: a book is complained of, having been examined by the board and condemned, the board reports that "it is in its general tendency indecent"—for that reason, should be prohibited from sale and distribution. The sole report of the board is that the book should be prohibited on those general grounds, and the Minister, accordingly, prohibits it, unless, according to one interpretation of the word "may" in the Act, the Minister decides not to do so. However, the consideration of the exact import of the word "may" is quite irrelevant to the argument, and I mention it only to pass away from it.

I do not want to be tripped up every now and again by Senator Sir John Keane with regard to the interpretation of the phrase, the legal interpretation of it. The point is that this procedure holds good with regard to a book reported on, pursuant to a complaint. As I was saying, if we disapprove of the sale and distribution of a book, the mode in which we convey that disapproval to the Minister and asking the Minister to prohibit the sale or distribution of that book is to report: "In its general tendency indecent." A technicality. The jury in a French trial may find a person guilty, but may also find that there are "extenuating circumstances". They are not committed to the view that there are extenuating circumstances, in the popular meaning of the words, however. It is merely a technicality to the judge to be merciful in his sentence.

It is perfectly true that, if the board reports of a book that it is in its general tendency indecent, the Minister is expected to act on that report, but what is the significance of the report? It is that the Minister is recommended to ban that book on the ground that its general tendency is unwholesome to—not 20, 30 or 40 rare souls, but to the general body of citizens—detrimental to the common weal. The one item in our report is that the book is in its general tendency indecent. In this connection, I should like to say that the Minister paid compliments to the work of our board and said that he, frequently, accepts the recommendations of the board without further examination on his own part. I should also like to add that I am very grateful to him for the way in which he declared his utmost confidence in the methods of the board.

This is important: Are we free to find that the book should not have free and full circulation in the State wantonly and gratuitously? Must there not be something objective, something discernible in the work on account of which we recommend its prohibition? Of course, there must. If there were not, the charges that are made in ex-parte statements, proceeding in the main from those that have had their books banned, would be justified. If there were nothing to guide us, nothing to take account of, in the Act, the Act of 1929 would not be the serious legislation of the Parliament of the State, it would be an act of lunatics giving a licence to a few men whom it pleases a Minister to call fit and proper men for the purpose, to read a book and call upon the Minister to cut it off from all sales in the country without there being any reason of any sort for the proposition. I do not think it is necessary, but if Senator Sir John Keane requires it, or if anyone else think it desirable, I will go back to the definition. In our Act— I am reading from Part I, Preliminary, Section 2—the word “indecent” shall be construed as including suggestive of, or inciting to sexual immorality or unnatural vice, or likely in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave. I have already drawn the attention of the House to that second clause. It is the part which Senator Johnston in his support of Senator Sir John Keane's allegation omitted. No one has any right, more particularly in a case like this, to select how much or how little of the guidance in an Act of Parliament that is given to those who are operating it he will quote. I am sure it was inadvertence on the part of Senator Johnston and not deliberate, but he stands convicted of it in the Official Report.

The Senator is not so familiar with the wording of the original Act as Senator Magennis is.

I exonerate Senator Professor Johnston. I do not accuse him of quoting in part on purpose to carry his argument. The word "indecent" shall be construed as including suggestive of, or inciting to sexual immorality or unnatural vice or likely in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave. Let me read the leading case in English law on obscene literature. I am quoting now from Sir Edward Atkinson, Director of Public Prosecution: "The circumstances of publication may also be of importance." He had stated in the preceding paragraph that the publication is an essential element in the offence. He proceeds: "The circumstances of publication may be also of importance." In the Queen versus Hicklin, 1868—this is the leading case—First Law Reports, 3 Queen's Bench, page 367, it was pointed out that a medical treatise with illustrations necessary for the information of students or practitioners would probably not be treated as obscene if published so as to reach such persons though it might form the subject of an indictment if exhibited in a shop window for any passer-by to see.

Laws of Life, in large measure a medical book, of extreme value to the medical practitioner and to priests as confessors, that is, priests hearing confessions in the confessional. A book written for them, containing valuable scientific knowledge for them, can be in existence and available for them only if printed and published. It consequently may be printed and published without coming under the danger of an indictment as giving publicity to obscene literature. If the House will be patient with me, I will read this again, because it is a very vital part of our case: “The circumstances of publication may also be of importance.” In The Queen versus Hicklin, 1868, it was pointed out that a medical treatise necessary for the information of students and practitioners would not be treated as obscene if published so as to reach those persons”—to reach just such persons. If this book were published or could be published so as just to reach such persons as it would help in their professional work, we should be the fools and the asses that we have been so persistently styled by these so-called writers. That is their only mastery of invective, their only ability to make a damning case against men on whose reputations they make their attacks, animated with malignity and malice, getting their own back—as they would call it—on the board that banned them. That is the height of literature to which they rise. The ex-Censor of Films, Mr. Moutgomery, who, as those of you who know him may know, has a reputation for a ready wit and a keen humour, has described the school to which I refer as the “O'Caliban school of lecher-ature”— a very apt piece of terminology. The Director of Public Prosecutions, in his lecture to the law school of the University of London, proceeds:

"Although nearly 70 years have passed since that decision was given, I hazard the comment that the courts of to-day would support the reasoning of this passage."

Lecher-ature is not put forward by a responsible lawyer as the prudery of the Victorian age. He has no doubt, although 70 years and more have passed since that decision was given, in hazarding the opinion that the courts of to-day would support the reasoning of this passage, and the reasoning of this passage contains the important principle that the circumstances of publication are of importance.

"The test laid down in Hicklin's case is applied in practice to protect a number of medical works published in the interests of science and medicine which, if published and sold on ordinary bookstalls with the supposed attraction of their being indecent, might involve the seller in criminal proceedings."

It is in that connection that the passage I read from Laws of Life about London in 1910 and London in 1942 with its streets denuded at night of the usual street walkers, because of the extended operations of the amateur, is valuable. To what factor does he attribute the rise and prevalence of the amateur practitioner? To the indiscriminate circulation of knowledge about birth control. But then, I can show you that his own book circulated just as might a book on how to spot a winner or as some handbook teaching how to win the victory in bridge, might be published is indiscriminate circulation of teaching about birth control and teaching injudiciously, erroneously, stated.

There is another item in our Act which shows that the drafter of it was not unmindful of those considerations that are embodied in the leading case of British law against obscenity and publication. Before I quote sub-section (3) of Section 6, I should stop to say that this is the part of the Act that men of light and leading in the literary world of this city say was disregarded at the time of the banning of the book called Jackets Green. A distinguished member of the Press reporting staffs of the city rang me up and said indignantly that we disregarded the Act altogether, that our board had no regard for the Act. I replied as politely as possible in the circumstances: “Have you read the Act?” He said “No”. Then I said something to this effect: “Postpone the discussion until you have,” and I put down the telephone. That reminds me that this formula, “in its general tendency indecent”, was the subject of a very close examination of me by Mr. Justice Hawke in the London Law Courts, where the author of Jackets Green was the plaintiff in an action against the Daily Express for libel. The judge and the English lawyers, with whom I was in conversation afterwards when the court rose for the day, agreed with what I have been putting before the House.

That, by the way, was not the only communication that I had from Pressmen at the time. One rang me up to know was it true that, although the Iris Oifigiúil said that Jackets Green was banned as in its general tendency indecent, Mr. de Valera had put pressure on me to persuade the board to ban it because of its references to what used to be called by pro-Treaty writers irregulars. Dublin is the whispering gallery in which all such malicious stories get full circulation, and are repeated again and again until they are believed as inspired words of Holy Scripture.

Now let me quote sub-section (3) of Section 6. This is a warning that the board, when considering a complaint referred to it under this section, shall have regard to any of the following matters. These are pointers, guides and directions as to the considerations which shall weigh with the examiners in their scrutiny of the book complained of.

"The literary, artistic, scientific or historic merit or importance and the general tenor of the book or the particular edition of a book which is the subject of such complaint."

You will observe that that operates— it will give comfort and solace to the disturbed mind of Senator Professor Johnston—to preserve Shakespeare and the Bible. Who would dream of submitting a complaint of the Bible as an obscene publication, or of Shakespeare as an obscene publication and expect to be taken seriously? If there is anyone so foolish as to think it would be contemplated I would refer him to As You Like It, to the scene in which Duke Senior replies to the melancholy Jacques who, after a life spent in frequenting continental bagnios and renaissance palaces, would like to be the Duke's Jester:

"Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin:

For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting itself;

And all th' embossed sores and headed evils,

That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,

Would'st thou disgorge into the general world."

There you have the reprimand to those who, under the guise of satirising sins, would make the world acquainted with the details of them, and so deal with them, that the lewd reader would smack his lips with lascivious enjoyment of what he was receiving. The other consideration—this is sub-paragraph (c), for the information of anyone who wants to read and check my quotations—is "the nature and extent of the circulation which, in the opinion of the board, such book or edition is intended to have". That is so important that, at the risk of iteration, I read it again: "The nature and extent of the circulation which, in the opinion of the board, such book or edition is intended to have." That is a reference precisely to what I have read to you: "The circumstances of publication may also be of importance." Certain works of medicine, if published so as to reach the proper persons, would not be treated as obscene, but if exhibited in the shop window for passers-by to see might entail indictment of the publisher. In addition to that provision in (c), which I have read, there is (d): "the class of reader in Saorstát Eireann which, in the opinion of the board, may reasonably be expected to read such book or edition". It is not "in the certainty of the board", observe. Most of those satirists of ours call for mathematical certitude. Aristotle has defined "the crank"; hundreds of years before Christ "the crank" was defined. Aristotle defined "the crank" as the man who looks for a greater degree of certainty in matters than the matters themselves can bear; in other words, probability is a guide of life. We are adjured by the Act to consider "the nature and extent of the circulation which, in the opinion of the board, such book or edition is intended to have" and "the class of reader in Saorstát Éireann which, in the opinion of the board, may reasonably be expected to read such book or edition".

Having studied very carefully the Laws of Life, we saw at once that the book might have peculiar value for a limited class of readers, and anyone who reads it will see that it is because that is so the author was at pains to write it and get it printed and published. We saw also the risk there was of its falling into improper hands, of its having an undesirable circulation. He, himself, in express words, points out that the circulation, without safeguards or without precautions, of knowledge about methods of limitation of families, is one of the causes of the replacement of the professional by the amateur. How can we, under the Act, do for the Twenty-Six Counties State what would be done for Great Britain by the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions bringing a prosecution such as that of which I read an account to you some minutes ago? What, I ask, should be our procedure? It would be wrong to shut out the book from the use of the confessor or the doctor, who might act in co-operation, in cases where knowledge was requisite, to give the proper advice and the proper guidance to someone who had the right to look for it. What we did was this: we acted exactly according not merely to the spirit of the Act of 1929 but to the very words of it. We recommended the Minister to prohibit the sale and circulation of the book, and he did so. Now, we did that with full advertence to another item of the Act, of which none of our slanderers or libellers appears to be aware, or deliberately ignores. There is any amount written in the Press warning the board to beware: are people to be deprived of the opportunity of reading this, that or the other book? Have their rights no validity to-day because a Gestapo is at work? Senator Sir John Keane said that there is a literary Gestapo at work with hidden influences, under whose pressure we are working, but he cheers himself up with the hope that the unseen forces will be swept away. We recommended the prohibition of the sale and the circulation of the book. What are confessors and doctors to do—people who might reasonably and fairly be entitled to read the book? Provision is made for that in this Act. There is very little that has been overlooked. I am bound to pay that compliment to the draftsmen and those responsible for this Act; very little has been overlooked. Any of those people can apply to the Minister and not only can the Minister allow him to buy the book, but under one part of the Act he has extended powers to allow him to print and publish periodicals that are banned, if for some reason it appears right to him to do so.

It will be seen then that so far as this book, in the edition before us— the book I hold in my hand— is concerned, we acted according to the view of the author himself, that certain knowledge if indiscriminately disseminated would, in all probability, with many of its readers, lead to their moral downfall. It may be said that that is a serious charge to make against a book, and that a priori reasoners like Senator Sir John Keane and his supporter, Senator Professor Johnston, could not possibly be wrong. You are asked to believe by those speakers that we could not possibly be right. According to our libellers we are disregarding the law. In the spiritual home of Senator Sir John Keane this is the law, and I ask you to compare it with what is in this Act. In The Queen versus Hicklin, 1868, it says:—

"What is of much greater importance——

that is, of much greater importance that the point about publication——

"——as containing a statement by way of definition of obscenity, namely the test of obscenity, is whether the tendency of the matter published is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands the publication might fall."

According to Section 2 of our Act, "the word ‘indecent' shall be construed as including suggestive of or inciting to sexual immorality or unnatural vice or likely in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave." Word for word in that respect. I have already pointed out that when one speaks of "likely to", it means what is frequently spoken of as calculated to or what, in all probability, or in a high degree of probability, will come about. I have made the point already—may I repeat it?—that the calculation of a probability is the work of an educated mind and when the Minister, in accordance with the Act, selects men, such as the Act describes as fit and proper persons, to administer this Act, then he has, in his connotation of the words "fit and proper persons", men whose education and way of life enable them to estimate probabilities of this nature, to wit, psychological probabilities, psychological and moral probabilities, what will presumably be the reactions to a certain type of communication on the part of men of such-and-such stage of development.

Great play was made here as to our decisions about books, allowing out only the book for Little Willie, with Little Willie's father and grandfather debarred from it. Those who use that know they are talking tosh, plain, unmitigated tosh, because the books that we have not banned are, many of them, of a type that those who are influenced by Victorian ideas would have banned instanter. Senator Fitzgerald mentioned a book and gave it high praise. He gave an account of the tenor of it, and of his reactions to it, and he added: “Unfortunately, the board banned the book.” The board did not ban the book, and that is the portion of his speech with which I disagree.

I think I protected myself by saying that I understood the board had banned it.

So did Senator Sir John Keane "hear from certain people", and "understand from other people", and "was given to understand" by others.

My information came from a Bishop.

Again I quote: "If it is in John Bull, it must be true.”

I am very pleased to know it was not banned.

It was not banned. There are many other books, I may tell him, of the same type, a book, for example, Famine, by Liam O Flaherty. It was not banned; it is very strong meat, no doubt, but it was not banned. I was reading to show you the test of obscenity which is employed in the British courts and which was employed in a case, the report of which I read to you. “Where the tendency of the matter published”—that is, all matter of objective certainty, of objective fact of which there can be certainty—the estimation of the tendency is the calculation of a man in view of what is before him. “Where the tendency of the matter published is to deprave and corrupt” those whose minds are open to such immoral influence and into whose hands the publication might fall— that particular element is not in Section 2, but it is in sub-sections (c) and (d) which I read to you just now— taking into account, having consideration of, the type of people into whose hands it is likely to fall.

Let me come now to the book, the banning of which involves this terrible thing that shocked the heart and conscience of Frank O'Connor and Seán O Faolain and their associates. The monstrous enormity of banning a book that had the imprimatur of an Archbishop! When they first made that charge, they thought they would get away with it. They had eventually to add, like the hot water to the Oxo, a little diluting matter, and then it became a book that had the sanction of a board under the Archbishop of Westminster. It is pretty much like the story of the three black crows. They found that there was a second edition—and even the second edition did not bear an imprimatur; it had, as I read already, the words permissu superiorum—and then they proceeded to slang us with renewed vigour. We banned the book on the grounds of indecency—I have dealt with that point already. We banned the book that had the permissu superiorum.

They never thought of going into the second edition and comparing it with the first, but I did, and this is where, in the popular phrase, they lose their horse. The very points in the original book on which I fastened when we were examining it as a board of censorship are the very points that, in order to get the permissu superiorum, have had to be omitted or re-worded. I wonder what Senator Sir John Keane will say to that, he who made such repeated play with the imprimatur. Here is one of the statements in the original book —I can quote it from memory, but, if the House prefers, I will read it. It is on page 36, and this is the original book we had before us:

[The Senator quotes.]

You will observe that he is not the champion of anti-birth control; he is an advocate of birth control. What he objects to is the other fellow's method of limitation of families.

[The Senator quotes.]

Then we have in brackets, by way of parenthesis,

[Again the Senator quotes.]

and then, outside the bracket, it goes on:

[The Senator quotes.]

—that is what we would call here, in this House, the economic pressure of the times—

[The Senator quotes.]

That is altered in the second edition. It is not the most notable alteration— I am coming to that. Instead of saying:

[The Senator quotes.]

—speaking out of his own personality as a Catholic publicist on these questions—the second edition reads:

[The Senator quotes.]

He is not speaking as one who makes no bones about it, but faces up to the actualities. He conjectures that, unless the tenor of thought of life in England undergoes alteration, etc.

Now this is the important point. What I fastened on in the book was what purported to be a statement of Catholic doctrine with regard to certain periods of infertility. He says, apropos of what is permissible in face of those:

[The Senator quotes.]

Would the Senator please give the page?

Certainly. It is Chapter IV. The Senator is fearfully alarmed that I may garble quotations.

Those who garble suspect others. He says:

[The Senator quotes from the book.]

I have not heard the page yet.

I am coming to it.

I thought the Senator was reading from the book.

You will permit me please. Have a little ordinary courtesy and allow me to make my arguments without your perpetual steering of me. The Senator succeeded with my friend Senator Kehoe when he asked him: "Who are ‘we‘?" when the Senator had said: "We procured a legal opinion", by dexterously interrupting the Senator, getting him off the trail altogether, as you will see from reading the Official Report. Senator Kehoe will forgive my drawing the attention of the House to how successfully he was drawn off.

I should like to say that I think that it is most reasonable, when something is being read out, that somebody, who may have to reply to it, should ask on what page it is. I do not think that that question from Sir John Keane——

Is this a super-chairman? In the previous debate, this super-chairman interrupted in the interest of fair play.

It has been the practice to cite the page when requested.

I have always in this debate not only quoted chapter, verse and page, but I even came to the assistance of the Senator, as he will recollect. When he was not able to find the place himself, I gave him page 157.

My point of order was that I did not think it justifiable to accuse a man of suggesting that the speaker was proposing to give a garbled version merely because he asked for the page.

I hold—if you correct me, Sir, I shall submit to your correction—that I am perfectly entitled to complain of the tactics of interruption which are the favourite tactics of the Senator who is proposing this motion. I gave Chapter 4 and this is on page 48 in both editions. I intended to give the page, as a matter of fact, myself. I wanted to draw the attention of the House to the fact that, in the second edition, we proceed page by page with the first edition, which is what misled those people. If they did at all think of taking the ordinary precaution of comparing the second edition with the first, they were misled by finding the pages, drawings and what not the same in the corresponding pages. I am going deeper and reading the alterations.

On page 48, he says:—

[The Senator quotes.]

That, standing alone without any qualification, and read by those who are not familiar with books of the type, read as an unqualified statement.

[The Senator re-quoted.]

To whom? To people living in lawful marriage; and he says on next page of his book—at the top of page 49— that he is writing it for the guidance of engaged people:—

[Again the Senator quotes.]

What a fearful sideslip! Everybody knows that in times of economic hardship, as so often has been the case in our own country, there are couples who are for years and years engaged and not able to marry—"boys", as they are called in my country, of 36, 38 and 40 who have been engaged for ever so long and still are not married because they cannot afford it.

It is notorious in physiological psychology and ordinary psychology, as well as in the psychology of ethics, that there is a special temptation, in the case of engaged people to liberties in the fact that they intend to be married, and if a book like this, which calculates for them the exact time at which the infertile period may be made use of so as to avoid increase in the family, were to be circulated everywhere and read by all and sundry, would it not be an incentive to sexual immorality? We can cite in answer the authority of ever so many books. Senator Sir John Keane requires to be reminded that the members of this board have an uncommonly and detestably familiar acquaintance with books of the type which recommend contraceptives and irregularities of every sort. In Dickens' sketch, the House will remember that Mr. Pickwick's valet—

Dingley Dell.

It was Sam Weller, who says, as regards widows, that his information is "extensive and peculiar". Our acquaintance with books recommending the limitation of families and the way in which it can be done is extensive and peculiar. I regret that it should be so, but that is necessarily entailed by being a fit and proper person in the eyes of the Minister. Therefore, I claim again that we know what we are talking about when we speak of what is likely to occur. Of course, according to Sir John Keane, because we are not babes and sucklings, we are not able to know these things. We are too old. That is part of his attack on the board—they are too old; they are out of date; they are out of fashion.

Hear, hear.

The Senator says "Hear, hear". Then the Ten Commandments are out of fashion. There is a higher authority than Sir John Keane as a teacher of morals and conduct, and I quote Him with all reverence: Lead us not into temptation. I prefer the doctrine of the Lord's Prayer to that of Sir John Keane, or that of the leader writer in the Irish Times. We contend that a book, which shows how, with impunity, or almost certain impunity, these irregular relations can be entered into without fear of the consequence, is not meet for general circulation. We are told by the Act to take this into account—what manner of men, what manner of readers, the book is meant for—and we have done so, and because we have done so, the newspapers of Ireland are flooded with indignant letters about five lawless men, these men who are a law unto themselves and who are shutting off the Irish public from access to books to which “they have a right”!

[Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.]

I was proceeding to show, as regards this second edition, that it is practically a new book, and that, in essential respects. There have been removed from the second edition the elements objectionable, in our view, in the first edition. I should remind the House that the first edition was published by Sheed and Ward in November, 1935. On the second edition published in July, 1936, appears the inscription permissu superiorum. A comparison of the two editions shows important alterations, at first a slight one in one chapter, a very important alteration in chapter 4, and in a chapter on sterilisation of the unfit. When I left off, I was pointing out that there are four or five statements about the Catholic Church which are apt to be misunderstood by readers of a certain class. Page 48, chapter 4 proscribes the use of contraceptives and permits the use of the safe period in these words:

[The Senator quotes.]

Here is what it becomes in the second edition. As a statement of Catholic doctrine and permitted practice, I, personally, as a censor, or rather as an adviser to the censor, and member of the board, considered that unhedged unqualified sentence to be highly dangerous and as likely to mislead readers who found the teaching such as to fall in with their own desires. The second paragraph of chapter 4 reads:

[The Senator quoted.]

I challenge the Senator who brought in this motion to deny that that is an essential alteration

[Again the Senator quoted.]

Who would "suggest" that? Obviously the confessor, on approach to him for direction and information by a penitent in Confession or a doctor to whom the penitent would be referred by the confessor. Could anything be clearer than this, that the second edition of this book is intended for a particular class of reader? I said "particular". I do not mean by that an individual but a reader of a professional class.

[The Senator quoted from the book.]

Is that a quotation?

Chapter IV, page 48, second paragraph. The Senator is reading the first edition. I am reading the edition that got the permissu superiorum and, I submit, got that permissu superiorum because it is specifically a new book; one which purports to give Catholic teaching and gives it correctly. “Mark how a plain tale shall put thee down”.

[The Senator quotes.]

The edition from which the Senator is reading adds:

[The Senator quotes from 1st edition.]

That standing alone is not true. It is a libel on the Catholic Church, unintentional, no doubt. It is carelessness on the part of the writer, but there is no one standing beside every copy of the book to warn the reader: "You must not take this passage literally." Here is the correct doctrine, and on the work with the correct doctrine you have the permissu superiorum. This is the work of a layman, I should mention, and there was no necessity for a layman to apply to Westminster or any other diocesan synod for any mark such as permissu superiorum or imprimatur. This work had been in circulation, and in wide circulation, and to Catholics it had this to recommend it: that it was the work of a man who shows, in the second chapter here, that he had been the hero of the fight against Marie Stopes and her contraceptivist clan. Other people also knowing him and the large part he had played in this drama of conflict with the contraceptivists, would imagine that he was stating here accurately and with precision the doctrine of the Catholic Church. In other words, they would take it that what he permits, he permits to all and sundry. Now you have got the truth stated with absolute precision. Instead of what is here in the first edition there is this—and this is the book that bears the permissu superiorum on all further impressions of it—I am reading from page 48 of the second edition:

[The Senator quotes.]

that is in our Latin books what students of ethics would call causa prolis

[Again the Senator quotes.]

—not engaged people or not people who are keeping company, but married people—

[The Senator quotes.]

There is an enormous difference between that, an unmistakable difference, and the bald statement that the Catholic Church permits the use of the safe period. Now I am reading again:

[Here the Senator quoted.]

Again I refer to the lecture of Sir Edward Atkinson, Director of Public Prosecutions: "A medical book must be available for medical students and medical practitioners." That is to say if it is not printed and published, how are they to get on with the work? Similarly, how is the confessor to tell when consulted what is precisely the Catholic teaching and the permissible Catholic practice if he has not access to some thoroughly dependable work? The permissu superiorum is given in order that a confessor and doctor would have it available, not that every Tom, Dick and Harry may have it. I want to finish with the reading.

[The Senator quoted from the book.]

The first edition had said, incautiously:

[The Senator quotes.]

I have already dealt with that. Engaged couples, under the economic pressure who cannot afford to marry, and yet unable to resist the carnal urge, might be tempted to use this. This first edition, providing a calculation as to how to determine the infertile periods becomes what I called it at the time we were reporting to the Minister—the fornicator's vade mecum or, if you like, the harlot's handbook. That is what it would become if circulated indiscriminately published, with those words—that “the Catholic Church permits the use of the safe period.” I have finished with this book, thank Heaven, so far as reading from it is concerned.

I have already dealt with the technical term permissu superiorum. When a book of that kind—more particularly a book written by a layman, who is not an authoritative teacher of religion, not being in Holy Orders—purports to state the Catholic doctrine, the writer takes the risk of being corrected and of his being complained of. If, however, he gets the word imprimatur—or, in the case of this book that has been in circulation already, permissu superiorum, as in the case of this substantially new book in question—it does not mean, as so many writers to the newspapers misunderstand it to mean, that everything in the book is, as we say colloquially, O.K. It does not mean that, it means that, in so far as it gives an account of Catholic doctrine, Catholic teaching or the exposition of Catholic practice, it is correct. And we were asked to believe that permissu superiorum is a magic formula which, printed in front of a book, makes it sound in everything, and sound in the sense of having the approval of a Cardinal Archbishop. The censor deputatus, and the Bishop who gives his imprimatur following the nihil obstat of the censor deputatus, have nothing to do with anything in a book except what comes legitimately into their purview or comes into their sphere of authoritative decision. Now, that second edition has been made right on the sole point that concerns the Westminster Diocesan Synod, namely, its declaration of what is and what is not permitted by the Catholic Church and the limitations of the use of natural powers. I hope I have made that clear. All this talk— I have no end of cuttings here—about the offence that we have been guilty of against Catholic authority is all so much ignorance.

Here is a letter printed in the Irish Times on the 20th October. I invite Senator Sir John Keane to note that it has a strange resemblance in tenor, and sometimes in words, to his own indictment. His resolution came to me by post on the 22nd October. This appears in the Irish Times on the 20th October. They were thinking the same thoughts at the same time.

I must interrupt the Senator. I am going to reply to a whole series of innuendoes. Here is an innuendo now. I say that I had no knowledge of or association in any shape or form with the writer of that letter, and I ask the Senator to withdraw his allegation.

I would ask the Senator if he read the Irish Times in which the letter appeared.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think Senator Keane is quite entitled to say that he has no knowledge of the writer.

Quite. I am not objecting to any disclaimer he makes. He may say when he calls us a Gestapo that he was talking "in the Pickwickian sense." He may disclaim anything he pleases, but I say that I am at liberty to hold him to what he has said. Apropos of that, the Senator's interest in censorship is comparatively new-born, as he did not know of the letters that appeared in September, 1936, and following that month in the Irish Times, although I take it that that is his favourite organ. He could not see that this campaign was being kept up day after day in the Irish Times. If he could not see that, the only possible explanation is that he was not interested in the question. Now he is all alive about it, and has the audacity to assert—I quote from the end of his speech—that the Minister's attitude is only a pretended interest, because he says a general election is possibly coming. Will he disclaim that? Fortunately, the Official Report is here to be quoted. He insinuates that the Minister's attitude in this business is dictated by politics and by political considerations, that it is a question of votes—but I will deal with that in its own place when I come to his speech.

In that letter to the Irish Times, headed “The Tailor and Ansty”, this occurs in the middle:

"If you can give me space, I will give one example which the public may test for themselves. In November, 1936, Dr. Halliday Sutherland, a well-known Catholic apologist, published a book called The Laws of Life. The publishers were the respected firm of Sheed and Ward. In October, 1941, an Order signed by Mr. Jeremiah Boland announced that this book was in its general tendency indecent. Unfortunately for the board and Mr. Boland, the publishers could produce the permissu superiorum of the Westminster Diocesan Council, and I suppose nobody will suggest that the Westminster Council does not know when a book is “in its general tendency indecent”. The incompetents of the board thus made public asses of themselves, they made the Minister look silly, they gave a slap in the face to his Eminence Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, whose Diocesan Council is told, in effect, that it recommends pornography.”

Could licence of language go much further than that, Sir? By carrying out the law of Ireland to the letter, we are indicated for implying that the Diocesan Council recommends pornography. Senator Sir John Keane so makes himself the spokesman in this House for all this accumulated malignity that he goes to the length of calling us a Gestapo. I will return to that again and again, because that infamous suggestion is the reason I have ceased to treat him with the courtesy I extended to him on the last occasion. He has deliberately put himself outside the pale where men are handled tenderly. You all know what the Gestapo is. According to the account given in a book published in America by the former head of the secret police in Berlin, he lost his position because he tried to persuade the republican government in Berlin to put out of their territory a certain Austrian "noisy agitator," Adolf Hitler. The author of that book is now in exile in America. Adolf Hitler, according to his revelations, has this band of secret police. "Unfortunately for the board and Mr. Boland"—I am reading again—"the publishers could produce the permissu superiorum”. The quotation proceeds:

"If space were available, I could give several other examples, all of which have been placed before the Minister by outraged citizens. They all point to the one conclusion, that the Act is being worked improperly."

I am making that an opportunity to read again from my authoritative lecture on Obscene Literature. The following quotation is from page 19 of the publication, Obscene Literature in Law and Practice, by Sir Edward Atkinson:—

"I return to a few comments on the case of Hicklin. The following comments are, possibly, justified as illustrating the difficulties of administering this branch of the law."

The great lawyers in England—nobody has ever questioned the ability of the lawyers in England—find a difficulty in administering this branch of the law.

"I refer to two classes of literature the publication of which in the last few years had increased in a remarkable degree."

The type of literature that Mr. Montgomery has styled "the O'Caliban school of lecherature".

"(1) books which, while masquerading under the guise of scientific works, purport in extreme detail to lay before the public the subject of sexual relations and aberrations;

(2) books which, under the guise of literature——"

This is the "lecherature"—

"——use sexual matters as colours in making a picture, generally of modern life, to such exclusion of other elements as to put sex in a wholly disproportionate and false position."

That is the enormity of the offence. The offence is not in using sex relations, or sex elements of life as a painter would use pigments in the making of a picture. It is the deliberate departure from the proper balance. Byron says, I think in Don Juan:

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;

‘Tis woman's whole existence."

But, according to these writers, woman's lust and man's lust are the supreme consideration. That is the impression the reader gets from their over-emphasis of certain elements in the married life whether regular or irregular. I want to read this again because, by my comment, I may have prevented Senator Sir John Keane from grasping the continuity of it (Quotation re-read). I proceed with the quotation:

"In the first class, the publishers' announcements pay lip-service to the cause of science. In the second class, books range from purely and obviously pornographic works to novels into which, for the purpose of adding to their selling value, passages of a semi-indecent character are deliberately introduced. You may think——"

This he says to the law students whom he is addressing

"——this is to represent a cynical view, but experience has taught me that it can be widely justified."

He adds a footnote of justification, portion of which I may read:

"As a footnote to this passage, I venture to append this extract from a memorandum as to a case in which common law proceedings were instituted at Bow Street"—

the police court in London

"In support of books dealing with sex and sexual matters, a good deal of hot air——"

I commend this to the particular notice of Senator Sir John Keane

"——is talked as to the stricter standard of the Victorian era and phrases as to the advantages of frank education of the young, in sex matters, are frequently put forth in justification of the looser standards of to-day. Whether or not more education on these matters is desirable, is an open question."

I stop reading to put in the parenthesis —not for Catholics, who have the advantage of the Encyclical on Christian education that specifically deals with this matter of sex education prematurely forced upon the young. On the last day of this debate, when I mentioned the Encyclical, Casti Connubii, it upset the whole intellectual balance of Senator Sir John Keane. He jumped to his feet to ask if an Encyclical overrides the State law. I return to the reading:

"But it is clear that if novels saturated with sexual details are to be published without interference, the minds of readers, and particularly of young readers, will be liable to become sodden with the subject at the risk of the complete upset of what is psychologically known as the sexual balance..."

That is the same point as in the previous passage of the author:

"...to such exclusion of other elements as to put sex in a wholly disproportionate and false position."

That is to say, that it upsets what is psychologically known as the sexual balance.

"This is an illustration of the kind of corruption which in legal phraseology is defined in the judgments in the cases cited. Much of the detail in this book..."

That is the book for which the publishers were being prosecuted in Bow Street.

"...could justifiably find a place in a medical, or even an historical, work upon its subject matter, but this book does not pretend to have any serious purpose which would underlie works of these descriptions. This book also illustrates the contention..."

That was the contention of the writer I quoted on the last day, who was Secretary for Home Affairs under the name of Sir Joynson Hicks, afterwards a Viscount in the House of Lords.

"...that the greater ability with which the indecent and depraved picture is presented, the greater is the danger that the mind of the reader will be corrupted."

That is not the utterance, let me tell Senator Sir John Keane, of the Victorian prudery operating in Ely Place, Dublin. That is the statement of a man occupying an eminent position in the world of law in England.

"This contention can justly be set against the well-worn plea...."

The plea put up by all those writers of the short story who, when they attempted to pad a short story into the dimensions of a novel with details of sex and smut, had their books banned—

"that in art and literature the scope of the artist and writer should not be fettered by limits so long as their works come up to a somewhat ill-defined standard of worth".

I will return to this letter to the Irish Times which preceded, let us say by a coincidence, the issue of the resolution. It is rather a coincidence that the writer of this and the framer of the resolution were reported in the public Press as being together at a public meeting. I am making a frank confession. The identity of the line of thought plus that fact suggested to me that whoever briefed the Senator, and badly briefed him I repeat, belonged to that clique.

"The Act is being worked improperly. Actually it is quite incapable of being worked properly". Under the guise of attacking these "addlepated asses", if there is such an ass in natural history, it becomes an attack upon the censorship itself, one of the institutions of State. "The Act cannot be worked properly."

"If a junior clerk caused one-tenth of the trouble that the five censors have caused us all, the

Minister would have sacked him on the spot."

On the 22nd there is a resolution calling on the Minister to sack the lot.

"They are unpaid, and if he thwarts them, or even checks them, they can call his bluff by threatening to resign."

What bluff is the Minister guilty of? If he were to refuse to stand over the Censorship Board, what bluff is he exercising?

"In short, these men will work only if they are given autocratic power.... The banning of The Tailor and Ansty is merely one further proof that the censorship, in its present form, is an embarrassment to the Government and a humiliation to the people.”

"In its present form."! Senator Sir John Keane could not make up his mind what exactly his resolution was attacking. He professed that he was not attacking the censorship, that he was attacking the conduct of the Censorship Board. Is it the present board? He asked me a great many questions. I think I will retort by asking him one. Is it the present board which he calls on the Minister to sack, or is it the board which took office in February, 1930?

Do you want an answer?

I said I wanted it.

I will give it to you. My resolution is quite clear. I ask for a reconstitution of the present board.

Of the present board?

Is it the present board that has lost the confidence of the Irish people?

In my opinion, yes.

I am delighted to get that straight answer. What, then, is the meaning of counting back over 13 years? The present board took office in February, 1942, and all his calculations about 1,600 books and three a week could not refer to the present board. The Senator has "walked into it". The official figure for the entire time of operation of the Censorship Board given by the Department of Justice is 1,552. So the Governor of the Bank of Ireland cannot do a simple sum in arithmetic! He manipulates 1,552 into 1,600—to get round numbers, I suppose, but round numbers that do not fit that calculation, for 1,556 would have been easier when dealing with 13 years, and on his figures he should have got 2,028 books —yet his purpose is indicating the present members of the board, the men who took office just in the beginning of this year.

It is the present board, the men who took office in February, 1942, that have lost the confidence of the Irish people. Very good. If they lost it by their misfeasance, with what misfeasance does he charge them? He staked his case on three books. Two of these books fell under the examination of previous boards, not of the present board. The only book of the three is The Tailor and Ansty. That is the only book that came under the notice and examination of the board that he says has lost the confidence of the Irish people. So we have lost the confidence of the Irish people because we would not allow this low, vulgar, obscene, blasphemous book to be circulated at large and gratify the English mind by seeing what the Irish peasant really is when shown up by “one who knows him”.

I put it to any reasonable body of men is this logic—to indict five men that they have lost the confidence of the Irish people by misfeasance, when all that he can show, or the clique of which he is the spearhead can show, is this miserable The Tailor and Ansty? I think this House should stamp upon this sort of conduct on the part of a man who, under cover of the word “board,” attacks the present members of the board and attacks them by accusations which could only be launched in malice against their predecessors. It happens that I am the senior member of the board in point of years of service—something like eight and a half years to-day. Therefore, if there is any point in the Senator's accusation with regard to misfeasance over a number of years, it is applicable, exclusively, to me. Yet the Senator has had the hardihood to assure me, as recorded in the Official Report, that he means nothing personal to me. What, in Heaven's name, does that mean? His calculation of 1,600 books over 13 years peculiarly fits so far as it fits anyone, a member of the board who has had eight and a half years' service, and yet the Senator said that there is nothing personal to me when he says that we are acting under the pressure of a hidden power—a kind of “literary Gestapo”. Well, I am not exactly Heinrich Himmler, and I should like to know, who is, in the Senator's opinion?

I shall answer the Senator in time.

Very good, and I shall answer all Senator Sir John Keane's questions in time, and I hope the Senator will treat me with the same "courtesy".

I understood the Senator to say that he did not intend to treat me with courtesy; so why should I?

I am not asking the Senator to treat me courteously, but, having charged the present board with being, in effect, a literary Gestapo, he has not had the grace either to modify or withdraw that statement and, on that account, I say that he is not entitled to the ordinary courtesies of life, because a man who would make an accusation such as that which is contained in his speech is taken out of the sphere of ordinary courtesies. I wish to quote what the Senator said, but I have not my own copy at the moment.

There is plenty of time.

I am sorry that I have not the papers at hand, but the Senator did describe us as a kind of literary Gestapo, and I do not want to delay the House. There is another point also. I have dealt with the Senator's extraordinary arithmetic, but there is also the matter to be considered, according to the Senator, of the loss to libraries and book-sellers, by reason of the banning of a book. In the old days, piracy was carried on, but, would anybody suggest that a claim for loss of profits should be entertained when piracy was put down, rigorously, and by due process of law? Captain Kidd never put in a claim for loss of profits when piracy was put down. Are we, then, to pity the poor publisher who makes his profits out of what the eminent English Judge, Mr. Justice Macnaghten, speaks of as "causing infinite damage to the souls of readers"? Senator Sir John Keane also refers to a book by Charles Morgan, that was not censored for three years, and goes on to say that nobody would imagine that a book by a man of such eminence would be censored—a man of wide literary repute, and one who "is a dramatic critic of The Times”. Why if the Senator had only known the board had banned a book by a man of far bigger standing, he would know that if we were this wretched crew of tools and minions of an unseen power, we would never have banned the book, to which I am referring, because the author of it is a convert to Catholicism, leader of the Scottish Nationalist movement, and both his religious and political views are identical with my own. Evidently, however, this man was told what Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne was told, to “sex it up”, and he “sexed it up” and the 1929 Act's axe fell upon him.

The Senator went on to say that the Minister might say that if the Act were not being worked correctly, one could invoke the law. Now, I invite the Senator again, as my colleague asked him before, to tell us who the "we" are who got that legal opinion on that question. Ostensibly, there may be a band of writers or critics, or some other section of the population, who may feel themselves aggrieved by the banning of a particular book. I admit it sounds rather like the editorial "We" that gives a certain amount of dignity to the title which, very often does not attach to the person himself, but I want the House to notice that if the phrase used by Senator Sir John Keane means anything, it means something which the House is entitled to stamp its strong sense of disagreement upon. The Senator said:—

"We have gone into that and have had legal opinion upon it. The legal opinion says that you cannot get an action and that, even if you could, it would not be worth very much, as the law can come along and correct itself."

The Senator then goes on to say:—

"You cannot get a legal injunction unless you can prove mala fides.

In that connection also, he speaks of the literary Gestapo, and you will see how Heinrich Himmler comes in. According to that, you can go to the law courts, but any decision you might get would be barren. If the words of the Senator do not mean that then what in Heaven's name, do they mean? I hope that the Senator will address himself to that particular question when he is replying.

Indeed, I will, and to a good deal more.

It seems to me to be a rather important matter that a member of our Parliament should make this aspersion on the administration of the law, and though it does not seem to matter very much to the Senator, I think it is a thing that should be animadverted on. The Senator says: "You cannot get a legal injunction unless you can prove mala fides.” The Senator, evidently, has no difficulty when it comes to a question of alleging mala fides. He goes on to say that he thinks that one could make a pretty good shot at proving mala fides in the case of the Land of Spices, but not in the case of The Tailor and Ansty. The phrase he used, I find, was “I could make a pretty good shot at it.” Yes, he could make a good shot at it here in this House, relying, in a cowardly way, on his immunity as a member of the Oireachtas. But he would not go to a court of law and make the accusation. If he believes in it, why not go to the court of law and make it? His counsel's opinion shows that if he can establish mala fides it deprives the board of privileges. No, he could not go to the court of law and make the case of mala fides, but it is good enough to make it here, and it is good enough to expect the members of the Press here to report it in the newspapers and give it circulation. He ought to have the courage of his convictions. “You cannot get a legal injunction unless you can prove mala fides. I think one could make a pretty good shot at proving mala fides....” Well, he put down his gun. He did not fire the gun. There is no record whatever in this Official Report of any attempt to show bad faith except, perhaps, the passage in which, with a great assumption of bonhomie he shrugged his shoulders and showed how the book related that nuns had pets and that there were in convent life little jealousies, and so on, and he added, with a fine pretence of disregard, that he did not think anyone would ban the book for that. If he did not, why did he allude to it? What was the purpose of it? And then, when I pricked his balloon with the simple remark “Of course not,” he begged me not to interrupt him. There is the story of a prize-fighter whose second remarked to him that there was blood on his jersey, and he said: “Let it stay, it shows that my blow told.”“You cannot prove it.” If you cannot prove it, why make the charge here? I go on to another of his statements.

Before he goes on, would the Senator say where on the record I asked him not to interrupt? I cannot see it.

Certainly, it is on the record. You will not find me making statements that I cannot substantiate. In a long life I have been accustomed to document every statement that I make, and I have not lost the good habit yet, although the Senator accuses us all of being too old for our work. It was towards the beginning of the speech, when he was dealing with the sodomy book—Land of Spices. It is too bad, Sir, that I remember the Senator's speeches and he cannot remember them himself.

Could the Senator not give the reference?

It is column 24, exactly in the centre. I read:—

"I have another book here.... This is a most astounding case. It is called Land of Spices, by an Irish writer, Kate O'Brien. It is a book about convent life. I read it carefully, and I may not be a very good judge, but I consider that its general motif is almost religious.”

I showed the House that its motif is sodomy—the aesthetic motif of the novel is sodomy.

"It shows the inmates of convents as human beings. They have their little jokes, their little jealousies and little intrigues, and nuns have their favourites too,"

—I find I misquoted the Senator. I said "pets", he said "favourites", so I withdraw the word "pets"—

"but surely no one is going to suggest that that is a reason for banning the book.

Professor Magennis: Of course not."

Now is the Senator satisfied that my quotation was accurate?

His next statement was: "Do not interrupt me, please."

Yes. I come back to this peroration of his. Much is said again and again about the books being in circulation for so long. Of course, we admit, Sir, that possibly books are on the market that are 90 per cent. obscene but they have not come under our ken. We cannot be expected to know all the books. I have read from the Act to show that we deal with complaints. If the Senator had put down a resolution to increase the power, intensify the activities, of the Censorship Board in carrying out the Act of 1929, he might have been doing a useful service, but instead, he tries to poison the public mind against the men who are doing their best, within the measure of their opportunities and facilities. In the case of this book whose æsthetic motif was the unspeakable sin, I showed the House, in the inner cover of the novel, the Argosy Library's mark of ownership. Let me tell the House the significance of that. When books have run their course in the big circulating libraries in England and in clubs like the Kildare Street Club, they are then sold off and they are bought by men whose business it is to have smaller, less pretentious, circulating libraries. This is how that affects this country: a book that has had its life as a library book in England run to its close starts a new career in Ireland. The entrepreneurs in England gets together the books I have indicated and he sends a batch of them here and there to the little country towns of Ireland. They are stocked there in the shops that sell cigarettes, sweets and newspapers and the people of the locality come and borrow them. The shopkeeper is not allowed any choice. He must take or leave the batch that comes to him, some of them in a most unwholesome condition so far as regards the public health because they may have been read by people in sick beds, they may have been read in atmospheres that were rich in bacteria and bacilli, but over they come to this country—it does not matter about us, the outlanders—and they are here started on their career of passing on depravity. According to these highbrows and intelligentsia, we are making asses of ourselves when we treat a book on its arrival to begin its work of Hell in Ireland as to all intents and purposes a new book. What does it matter to us, who are operating an Act of an Irish Parliament to defend the Irish people from corrupting influences, how long it has been tolerated in Great Britain? I am sure many of you must have read in the various papers about the asinine performances of the censors who ban a book that is already three years on the British market.

This book that I have read to you only came our way in 1941. It was on the market from 1935. We are not omniscient. Furthermore, there is a police service, and there is a customs service. Senator Sir John Keane had his fling at that, too. I am coming back to his allegation about the disorganisation of our law system and the inability of our law courts to give justice to the people. It is a principle of law and equity that there is no wrong without a remedy. That is the law of this land: that there is no wrong without a remedy, and if any of those people feel that they have been wronged they can appeal to the High Court for their remedy. They will not take it—the secret is disclosed here—because as is alleged they could not get justice or, if they did:

"In any case, as far as I can see, if you do upset the legal end of the censorship, there is another Act under which it can be done—the Customs Consolidation Act."

Oh! what a slip is here! The British Statute—the Customs Consolidation Act—is to be condemned as an engine of civilisation when it is worked in Ireland. Seemingly, it is all right when it is worked in England. What an extraordinary mentality is revealed in these strictures and criticisms? He says:

"Without right or reason, and acting under an Act originally intended to deal with obscene publications, the Government can stop any book, without censorship, coming through the post."

That is not correct, and if the Senator will read the Act of Parliament he will find that it is not. That is a most unwarrantable statement. "Therefore," he says, "I do not think there would be much good in going to law." This is more of his extraordinary logic. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived, Samson was the strongest: therefore, David played on the harp. That is the kind of logic that believes in a case like that. "I feel that this is a serious matter"—the Senator goes on—"and that it damages our national reputation." That would hurt him very hard.

"The other day I heard of someone writing to the papers...." There, again, the Senator does not read the Irish Times. Otherwise, he would have seen the letter written by a former district justice and have read it.

"The other day I heard of someone writing to the papers and saying that the Catholic standards of morals were not the same in this country as in England or other countries."

I commend to Senator Sir John Keane to read, if he can tear himself away from The Tailor and Ansty, a book just published by the Rev. Father Devane, S.J., on the Youth Movement in England. He will see there, collected by statisticians, the statistics of church-going people in Great Britain to-day. He will find that, if anyone alleges that there are more Christians to the square mile in Ireland than there are in England, he is merely stating what is established by statisticians. We have Christian standards, and that holds in the case of Protestants as well as Catholics, and we strive to uphold those Christian standards. He goes on to say:—

"I imagined that there was one Universal Church, with the same code covering all members of the flock".

As Senators know, I dealt with the book. There is no question at all of a difference of doctrine as between Ireland and Great Britain. In any case, the Senator ought to be aware that, apart from these books, regulations and codes are one thing and doctrine another. Will the Senator deny the universality claim when he discovers, in one section of the area of jurisdiction religiously, that there are married priests, although celibacy is the rule of the Church, and that in one place the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered according to a different rite from that normally observed in Europe? Many are the mistakes, errors and false opinions that get circulation, and if they come from a man in high position socially, well, they must be true, and if they appear in a high-class newspaper, a splendid piece of journalism like the Irish Times, well, then they must be true. “It is true that only a minority is affected.” I must say that when I heard him say that I thought he meant by it what is customarily called the Protestant minority but I am not so sure now.

Certainly not.

I am glad to know that, so that I may not make a mistake in interpreting the Senator's words. "I realise that this is a bad time to bring forward this matter." This is the man who is so much hurt by anything that might tend to give a wrong impression about this country.

"There is an election imminent. The Minister is a politician—let us be frank about these things—and it would not be good policy for him, whatever he may feel himself, to admit even a fraction of what I have been trying to prove. I do not expect a favourable response."

Of course, he insinuates "the Minister must defend these men who have made an ass of him and asses of themselves". The Minister's reply, in which he was generous enough to speak so highly of our poor services, is taken as a foregone conclusion. The Minister's reply is made with his tongue in his cheek. The Minister is a politician. This is to be promulgated through the length and breadth of the land as an account of his activities as a politician: he is in politics for what he can get out of it, that none of his protestations, and none of his acts of allegiance to Party, are bona fide honest transactions. “Let us be frank.” Well, he has been frank about it, but are we to accept that account of public life in Ireland? This is almost as bad as the Senator's attack upon the operation of the law. “The Minister is a politician—let us be frank about these things—and it would not be good policy for him, whatever he may feel himself, to admit even a fraction of what I have been trying to prove.” The Minister dare not tell the truth. Is not that what that statement means when translated into plain English? Why could not the Minister afford to tell the truth? Because “there is an election imminent.” There is an eminent American writer and most of you, I am sure, are familiar with her writings and, particularly, her plays. I refer to Mrs. Craigie, who wrote that comedy The Ambassador. In one of her essays she says there is nothing more irritating when you have stood on a platform and poured out your whole heart and soul in advocacy of a cause, than to be buttonholed by some friend when you are finished and asked: “Now, what is your real opinion about that?” By prophetic vision, Mrs. Craigie has seen Senator Sir John Keane in this speech: “It would not be good policy for him, whatever he may feel himself. I know too well the hidden forces at work in this matter and the dominating power of individual needs.” Who or what, I ask again, is this hidden force that is at work? The hidden force and the accusation of Gestapo, I suggest, Sir, go together—the Gestapo, or secret police, and the hidden force. “I know too well the hidden forces at work in this matter and the dominating power of individual needs. I shall not be a bit surprised, and shall bear no one any illwill, if I am told later on that I have been wallowing in literary garbage.” Well, none of us is going to tell him that. Therefore, he will be disappointed. “I want clean, fresh air on the facts of life.” I claim that I have given him a lot of clean, fresh air about the facts of the things that he has alleged. “I want a sense of proportion applied to human values.” He has occupied two days with The Tailor and Ansty; it was on The Tailor and Ansty that the whole contest turned, for it is the only pertinent, relevant consideration if, as he has declared to-night, his indictment is of the present members of the Censorship Board. He “wants” clean, fresh air. I think he does.

"I feel that, under this censorship continued in its present form...." This is the first time, by the way, that he has dealt specifically with that part of his resolution. He wants the board reconstituted. The Cork Examiner, in reporting the resolution, put it in a form that showed that his demand was the reconstitution of the board, and that the basis or thesis upon which he reposes is that they have lost the confidence of the people. I have already examined his procedure for proving the loss of confidence of the Irish people. We had lost the confidence of Frank O'Connor. We had lost the confidence of Lynn Doyle. No wonder we did. Lynn Doyle is the original source of this accusation of being a secret body. In September, 1936, he made his foul contribution to the attack on the institution of censorship, our State institution. He quoted from a previous publication of his own to this effect, that the censorship was a secret body and then he proceeded to lay down the general principle that all secret bodies act illegally. Even this Gestapo accusation, this farcical business of Minister talking with their tongues in their cheeks, even that is not original. There is not the merit of originality in his attacks. He called upon the Minister to reconstitute the board. What positive, constructive contribution has he made in aid of the Minister or of the Parliament in the reconstitution of the board? Is he saving that up for his reply? He must be, for the only place he refers to reconstitution is here when he is closing.

As I will not have the benefit of the Official Record when I am replying, would the Senator distinguish between Lynn Doyle and myself? Lynn Doyle is brought in, and I take it that he is talking about him, but then he suddenly appears to be talking about me.

Of course, I can only give the facts. I cannot give intelligence. I hate to be forever returning to this, that the man who alleges dishonesty, mala fides, being worked upon by hidden forces, really invites attack, unsparing attack. There are a great many things I could say, and I am not saying them—a great many. To gratify the Senator, with your permission, Sir, I will return to the Lynn Doyle point. The Senator is so anxious to dissociate himself from what he considers an accusation that he reads the Irish Times, that he is really losing all track of his own speech. I read the Irish Times. I read its leading articles with admiration, even when they are altogether different from my political affiliations. They are written with ability, most of them, when they are written recognisably by Mr. Smylie. I would not miss them for anything, but apparently they do not take it in at the Kildare Street Club. I said in regard to Lynn Doyle that he had anticipated the Senator's choice titbit for his peroration—this piece about the secret body. Lynn Doyle, I said, in a letter to the Irish Times in the autumn of 1936 joined in the series which, in the first instance, in the case of Frank O'Connor, alleged a conspiracy—I am quoting now from memory of six years ago—to refuse to the Irish writer the opportunity of making his living by his pen. That was followed by a long letter from the late Professor Trench, a great friend of mine personally, a Professor of English in Trinity College, and in it he used the language I have already quoted about the lapsed Catholic having a very poor chance for his talents. Then came this letter from Lynn Doyle in which he declares his attitude towards censorship by quoting a previous publication of his to the effect that the censorship is a secret body, and he added that all secret bodies act illegally.

On a point of Parliamentary procedure, have I not the right to more specific information about this letter by Lynn Doyle, because I want to look it up? The Senator says it was in the autumn of 1936.

I have already said September, 1936, and that, I respectfully submit, is a good enough reference for a letter in the newspapers.

Might I ask this: was it before or after Lynn Doyle joined the board?

It was before. He had—I do not know how to characterise it—the audacity to join the board, the secret society that works unlawfully, being a secret society. Now we have again, in November, 1942, this vague talk about hidden forces and the Gestapo. I come back to that again and again, because this is an allegation that we are working the censorship for some unlawful end at the instigation of some hidden force which is an authority to us. That is why, at the risk of wearying you beyond all human capacity, that I was at such pains to show you with what extraordinary fidelity to the letter of the law we have worked.

I could mention a great many other items, but I will mention just one. The allegation was made several times of late, that we have driven Irish writers into exile. I think I would rather not mention this case, because it is a dreadful case, the case of a book written and published by an Irishwoman, Nora Hoult. She has written a scene in a Dublin hospital run by nuns. I do not think I could really go on; it is too horrible and revolting. This woman is supposed to have gone to America to pursue her literary career, and she is given as an instance of how the Censorship Board has driven an Irish writer away from the homeland to seek subsistence in a foreign land. She was writing all the time for English publishers.

There is just one thing more that I want to say. If we have lost the confidence of the Irish people, then the Minister must, in a democratic State, get rid of us. If he is to get rid of us, he must select five men whom he can, in accordance with the Act, regard as fit and proper persons. I have no doubt he will have little difficulty in getting five fit and proper persons, but the same campaign will be conducted against them, because the persistent effort is to destroy censorship under this pretence of having no quarrel with censorship, that it is an institution necessary to any civilised State. They seek, as I put it on the last occasion, to atrophy the Censorship Board and, if they could coerce or intimidate a successor board, they would have gone a long way towards success in making the censorship ineffective, and that is what they are really aiming at.

There is a campaign going on in England to undermine Christianity. It is financed by American money. The society that is the main agent in the endeavour to put in paganism instead of the Christian creed and practice includes Professor Joad and George Bernard Shaw. They have been presidents of this society, and it would shock the House if I were to read out from their programme. No prosecution of homo-sexuality; a whole bouleversement of the Christian ideal of life— and there is money forthcoming to encourage participation in this kind of propaganda and activity in Ireland. It is a fight between Christianity, on the one hand, and the forces of paganism on the other, and there is no use trying to disguise it.

The policy pursued by the two Governments, Mr. Cosgrave's Government and Mr. de Valera's Government, has been in the direction of saving the people from the corrupting and depraving influences of the works that have been turned out hour after hour by the press in Great Britain. They are doing a noble national work. They may have chosen instruments in us where they might have had better men, but at any rate they chose a board to operate the Act, and the very people that are radically in opposition to the censorship idea are people who want to overthrow the State altogether. We have only to look around us and see what happened to Europe. I wonder does Senator Sir John Keane remember the evidence taken in Vichy when some of the men held by the Vichy Government as responsible for the war were indicted and evidence was given? The trend of the evidence was that it was moral and social corruption that had brought about the débâcle. I am not saying that that is true or false; I am not in a position to say, but at any rate that was the report in the Continental press of the transaction.

We all know that once the bonds of marriage are broken, and when you have concubinage and promiscuity in place of the family, you have begun to sap the foundation of the State. The very foundation of this higher community called the State is the family, and if the family is to disappear as an institution in civilisation, then goodbye to everything. That is the Cause the censorship is maintaining. It is trying, in so far as it can—and if in so far as it can is very little, that is to be regretted, not to be denounced—to save this country from further pollution. When we say that, a horde of the so-called intelligentsia will arise and cry to us: "Oh, so much for your contradictory attitude. The Irish people are the finest peasantry on God's earth, and Ireland is first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea. And yet they need the coercion of law to keep them pure." That is the retort that is used again and again.

Take a parallel to this. What are hospitals for? What are clinics for? What are the activities of the doctors for? To keep the people healthy and, where they have not been able to retain health, to restore them to health. Who alleges unhealthiness of the State because we have so many medical schools? Anything is good enough when we, the Papists of Ireland, are the butt of attack; anything is good enough for us, but they forget that our principles and standards in this matter of the decent life are the standards and principles of Protestant Christians equally, and that the tar brush they try to apply to us comes equally across those good Christian citizens who resent this sort of thing in the name of decent living—and that is in the name of the ideal of the majority of the Irish people. The fact that we have jail birds, bank robbers and occasionally murderers—does that prove all our civilisation is naught? If we were to apply the same standard of criticism to Great Britain, what could we say? We behold them claiming the admiration of the world for putting their last ounce, all their resources, into "a fight for Christianity." If we believed that type of criticism to-day, how cynical would our utterances become?

I should begin by making the same statement as was made by the Senator who seconded Senator Sir John Keane's motion, that I am not altogether in agreement with the terms of the motion. In fact, with regard to the propositions that are set out in it, I could hardly say that I would support any of them. This is what the motion says:—

That, in the opinion of Seanad Éireann, the Censorship of Publications Board appointed by the Minister for Justice under the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929, has ceased to retain public confidence, and that steps should be taken by the Minister to reconstitute the board.

My difficulty about that is that I do not know that the members of the present board or their predecessors ever had public confidence. Therefore, I could not agree with the Senator who proposed the motion when he argued that the board had lost public confidence. To guard against any misunderstanding, I do not know at what date any of the members of the board were changed, except the date which Senator Magennis gave us to-night, and I am not to be taken as making any personal references in anything I have to say about the board. I shall come later to say something to justify the opinion I have just expressed.

That is the basis of Senator Sir John Keane's motion, which goes on to say that steps should be taken by the Minister to reconstitute the board. With that proposition I am in entire disagreement. If the board disappears, I shall rejoice, and, let me say in answer to one of Senator Magennis' concluding remarks, that nobody was against the board except those who are against the stability of the State, that I have to admit that I think the censorship system is a mistake. I shall give a few reasons why I hold that opinion, and have held it for a number of years, but I will not accept the view that I am against the stability of the State and wish to destroy it, as was one of the closing suggestions of Senator Magennis for any people who would hold the views I hold about censorship.

The debate has been remarkable in many ways. It has been remarkable for, I think, two things in particular. One is the entire irrelevance of nearly all of it. With the exception of Senator Sir John Keane, who opened the debate, and Senator Magennis, who has just finished speaking, very few of the other speakers paid any attention to the terms of the Act under which the censors are acting. Senator Sir John Keane quoted the Act with care, and Senator Magennis emphasised it on us by repeating the relevant sentences time after time, and I am grateful to both for reminding us of the terms of the Act which, so far as I could judge, almost all the other Senators who spoke had forgotten or were careless of.

The essence of the work of the censors is to reject books of two classes which, as Senator Magennis reminded us, are very clearly defined in the Act. Apart altogether at the moment from the question of books which advocate the unnatural prevention of conception, or means to produce miscarriage, with regard to the other class of books which are in their general tendency indecent or obscene, I was surprised when Senator after Senator got up in defence of the board and in opposition to Senator Sir John Keane's motion, to say with regard to the various books which the Senator had taken us over—with what many of us thought was unnecessary detail, as nothing could be proved to the satisfaction of any ordinary intelligent man by the production of quotations of that sort, unless we had the admission that the passages produced were the worst in the book or were representative of the book, and we could not have that in the nature of things—that these books were properly censored on grounds which were irrelevant to the terms of the Act.

I marked in pencil in the Official Report a few of these remarks. Senator Goulding who was first to speak after Senator Sir John Keane, remarked, in criticism of The Tailor and Ansty, that it was silly, indecent and hopelessly tiresome. I have not read the book—not even as much of it as Senator Goulding admitted having read—but from the quotations I heard, I think that his remarks are entirely justified, but they are entirely irrelevant. He went on:

"The book is Rabelaisian and it is an utter travesty of the Irish country."

He went on to say that it was alien to anything he knew of the Irish country, which no doubt he knows very well. These criticisms of the book as silly, vulgar, and Rabelaisian are beside the point. The Senator did also use the word "indecent" in referring to its tiresome quality. The censors are not entitled to censor a book, or to advise the Minister to ban a book, on the ground of its being tiresome, and I hope they will not be given that power, or many of the reports of this Assembly would be banned very soon after their appearance.

Senator Goulding went on to say:

"A single passage or two or three passages make a book liable to censorship. I hold that the Censorship Board is quite justified in banning a book if it contains any such passage."

That is not in the Act. A book must be in its general tendency indecent or obscene. I quite admit that a book might state its thesis in a few paragraphs or in a brief passage which might show that it was in its general tendency indecent or obscene, but I cannot agree that the remark Senator Goulding made is relevant to the criticism of the way in which the Act is being carried out.

The next speaker was Senator O Buachalla, and he puzzled me because he seemed to my simple mind to be rather contradictory in his outlook. He said: "Senator Keane's standards are not ours." That is irrelevant, but the suggestion behind it is that we have a higher standard in this country than other people have or than the unfortunate Senator Sir John Keane has. We have had a great deal in this debate of what I thought was unnecessary, irritating and futile—this pharisaical attitude that lies behind a statement of that kind: we are not as this poor publican. Senator after Senator made statements which were modern renderings of the ancient statement: I thank thee, oh, God, that I am not like others and not like this poor publican. Whether it is true or not that we are not like the poor publican, or like the debased people who live outside the four shores of this country, it is an unhealthy attitude for any reasonable man to adopt that he is better than another. We all hope that we are better than other people, or we try to be better than other people, but I think we make a great mistake to plume ourselves on it as was done publicly by several members during the last day's debate.

What puzzled me most about Senator O Buachalla's speech was that, after expressing that opinion as to the high standard of morals and taste in this country—I almost fell into the same pharisaical attitude by saying that I agreed with him—he went on to point out the absolute greed of the people of this country for filthy literature. He said that he was a member of a committee investigating this problem of unhealthy literature,

"and on one occasion when we met I was absolutely horrified to see the pile of evil literature—magazines, weeklies, monthlies, and so on—that was laid on the table of one of the committee rooms of this House..."

Why in the world did it come here?

May I suggest to the Senator that that does not prove that the Irish people as a whole read these things? There is no inconsistency in that.

I do not think I misrepresented the Senator in any way. It was admitted anyway that in the Irish nation there was a very large number of people who provided a market for these books.

Is that not the point at issue in this discussion? We all admit they are coming in.

The Senator still does not see my point. The Senator argues that we in this country—the general people, the general readers of the country—have a very high standard, and yet he sees a table in another room of this House stacked with literature of what he regarded as an unhealthy kind.

Still there is no inconsistency.

I cannot follow the Senator.

Was that literature not seized on being brought in?

I could not tell you. Perhaps Senator Magennis could answer the question.

Then the basis of your argument is all wrong.

We had it that this stuff was having a sale in this country and that there was a section of the reading public—I will not say a large proportion—eager for this and paying money for it. Then we had a statement later by Senator Kehoe that there was no demand for this stuff. There is no demand for it; yet it is pouring in and it is necessary to prevent people getting it. If there are such large numbers requiring that literature, it is considered necessary to prevent them having it. There were other irrelevant references of the same sort of which I should like to remind the House. Perhaps the most startling statement of all came from one in authority—the Minister. Speaking of a particular book—I do not remember the one to which he was referring—he is reported in the Parliamentary Debates, column 55, as saying:—

"Whether the board was technically and legally correct, whether the book in its general tendency was indecent or obscene, may be open to question, but, on the ground that it was calculated to do untold harm I was perfectly satisfied it should be banned."

I suggest to the Minister that he has no power under the Act to ban a book on that definition—that it was calculated to do untold harm. He is bound by the Act. The kind of literature that may be banned, as Senator Magennis pointed out, is clearly defined in the Act. I think the Minister has admitted to-day that he banned a book because he was of opinion that it was dangerous and unwholesome. "Unwholesome" is very clearly defined in the Act. I assume that the Minister was bound by that, and that it was giving a bad example not only here but to the Censor in admitting any condemnation of a book which does not come within the terms of the Act. Unlike Senator Sir John Keane I have not studied books which have been known to be banned with any great care. In fact, I cannot remember having read any of the banned books after they were banned. I am not claiming any merit for that, but I have not access to the sources from which Senator Sir John Keane apparently can draw for starting a campaign such as this.

I can only remember reading two books that were banned by the censors. One was a book to which Senator Magennis made a passing reference—Bird Alone. I read that book some years ago and I thought it an excellent book. Senator Magennis did not make a long reference to it in his speech but he made what seemed to me a slighting reference. I have always been puzzled as to why it was banned. I could not think that any reasonable man of normal mind, such as I am sure the censors possess—and I have no reason to think otherwise—could find anything in the book to justify the verdict that it was “in its general tendency indecent or obscene”. There may be passages which one would not read aloud in the family circle, but there are many things that one would not do in the family circle which are not indecent or obscene. That was one book which I thought to be an admirable book. When I read it, I almost applied to it the praise which the late Senator Yeats used to apply to particular books: “One of the best books that came out of Ireland in our time.” I thought it was an excellent book to which to apply the advice given in the Act. I suppose it was applied but overruled on consideration. Section 6 (3) of the Act reads:

"When considering a complaint, referred to them under this section, the board shall have regard to all or any of the following matters, that is to say:

(a) the literary, artistic, scientific or historic merit or importance and the general tenor of the book or the particular edition of a book which is the subject of such complaint."

That book appeared to me to have literary and artistic merit that should carry very great weight with the censors, whether it was in its general tendency indecent or obscene. I regarded it as a highly moral book, in which not an unusual sin was followed by a period of great punishment, where the moral was impressed, as it was read from that incident right to the end. I happened to read another book some time earlier, a book called Water Gipsies, by A.T. Herbert, an English writer, to which the same consideration, as regards literary and artistic merit, applies. There were incidents in it which one would not read aloud in the family. I read the book through with great interest and I could not find any reason for banning it.

I do not claim that I am infallible or that the censors are not infallible, but these two instances suggest that there was something like hasty judgment on the part of the Minister and on the part of the censors. I do not know if the House would tolerate me if I attempted to follow in detail the speech we have had from Senator Magennis. When I heard Senator Magennis, I felt somewhat in the same mood as he felt when he finished reading leaders in the Irish Times. I admired his oration as much as he admires leaders in the Irish Times, although he may disagree with a great part of the opinions expressed in them. In like manner, I differ with many things the Senator says but I enjoy his speeches and I would not miss him for anything. There is one point to which I wish to draw attention, and to remind this House of an incident which occurred here to-day. Senator Magennis was very strenuous in his attack, because Senator Sir John Keane pointed out that the law could be changed if a particular decision was given. We had what I thought was an unfortunate incident of that kind in this House to-day before Senator Magennis' arrival, when certain persons who believed that they had rights in law—and with good reason as a similar claim had succeeded earlier— but their action when they were at the door of the courts—I do not mean literally—was estopped when this House and the other House stepped in. I do not know whether Senator Sir John Keane had such an incident in his mind.

What I had in mind was the land code. No sooner is a decision given against the Government on the land code, than a law is brought in to put it right. That happens almost every day.

I did not know that there was such a common precedent. I objected to it to-day and I think that practice takes away any force that was in that particular portion of the argument of Senator Professor Magennis because the Legislature, led by the Government, is in the habit of doing that.

Might I interrupt the Senator to point out that we have now reached the normal hour for adjournment. Perhaps the Senator would move the adjournment.

If you will allow me about three minutes, Sir, I shall conclude what I have to say.

The Senator may proceed.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I should be glad to see the end of the Censorship Board altogether. It is not that I do not sympathise with the view that filthy literature should not be read, but I disagree with the principle of compulsion as applied by the Legislature or by advisers appointed by the Legislature. It is a curious thing that the Irish people, who all through the centuries have shown a great love for freedom and have insistently demanded freedom, never seem to have shown any great demand for individual liberty. I think it shows a great lack amongst us that we do not insist on getting more individual liberty. It seems to me that when we are endeavouring to control the reading of members of the public, we are adopting a line which we should not adopt. I think the individual citizen has a right to choose his own reading, as he has a right to choose his own meat and drink when he can get it. To insist that he shall not read this or that, seems to me the same as to insist that he shall not eat bacon if he likes it, beef if he likes it or potatoes if he likes them. By such methods I think you are really creating a public largely deprived of individual responsibility and that, ultimately, these methods are bound to have a demoralising effect.

Would the Senator suggest that the public might be allowed to consume opium?

No. I know more about that than I do about evil literature. Opium is a definite poison which can be defined. I do not think that evil literature can be so clearly defined, as we may gather from the various opinions expressed here on the subject.

It is banned to the public in general.

I know that. Anybody who knows anything about drugs can discover that opium is a definite poison. I have every respect for Senator Magennis and his colleagues —I hope I have not said anything disrespectful about them in the course of this debate—but I do not think that the Censorship Board could decide that certain literature is evil with the same certainty or precision that a chemist could arrive at a decision as to the noxious effects of certain drugs. I am sorry to have taken up so much of the time of the House, and I thank you, a Chathaoirligh, for your courtesy in allowing me to proceed beyond the normal time for adjournment. In conclusion, I would say that the censorship in its broad and long effects will have a bad influence on the people generally. I cannot agree with the last clause of the motion, which suggests that the board should be reconstituted. I hope that when the board goes, if it ever goes, no other body will take its place.

I move the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow.

Debate accordingly adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 9.5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 3rd December.

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