I move amendment No. 1:—
In page 2 to delete lines 20-22 and substitute therefor the following words: "the word ‘indecent' means any matter the publication of which and general distribution thereof would be likely to affect public morals injuriously."
In the Principal Act, there is an interpretation clause—and by the way the interpretation clause is not being repealed in Part 1 of the Bill—which says:—
"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."
That, although it appears very clear and definite, has provided opportunities in the past for a great number of attacks upon the Censorship Board— some of them wilful, others due to ignorance. Some people chose to interpret the word "including" as equivalent to a strict definition, so that the Censorship Board is not entitled to deal with a book unless it comes under some of these heads, that it incites—that, of course, is that it is deliberate, of malice aforethought, of set purpose—to sexual immorality or unnatural vice. I do not profess to understand the remaining part of the definition—"or likely in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave"— because I do not know what a "similar way" might be. That was put into the legislation of the year 1929 and in 1937 we enacted the Constitution which provided a basis for all the legislative references to indecent matters.
With your permission, Sir, to elucidate the point I shall read from the Constitution. This is under the heading of "Fundamental rights; Personal rights."
"The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights subject to public order and morality:—
(i) the right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions."
That is the right of publication and the right of utterance, subject of course, as I read out, to public order and morality.
Sub-section (1) says:—
"The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.
The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion such as the radio, the Press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.
The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law."
It is clearly necessary to implement that Article of the Constitution in legislation of some sort or other and the appropriate place with regard to this right of publication and utterance is the Censorship of Publications Bill. We have, therefore, a better basis, I submit, for dealing with the term or expression, "indecent matter" than we had prior to the enactment of the Constitution. What I have in view in the amendment, then, is to set out what the word "indecent", or the phrase "indecent matter", shall be deemed to mean. I put in, instead of "includes", "means" and I get the expression as to what it means out of the Act of 1929. It is in Part III of the Act in regard to the publication of proceedings in the law courts. It says:—
"It shall not be lawful to print or publish or cause or procure to be printed or published in relation to any judicial proceedings—
(a) any indecent matter the publication of which would be calculated to injure public morals...."
I transfer that from its context in the special reference to judicial matters and I give it a general character so that the amendment reads
"The word ‘indecent' means any matter the publication of which and general distribution thereof would be likely to affect public morals injuriously."
I referred on the Second Reading to the difference in interpretation clauses between "means" and "includes". If you will permit me, Sir, I shall read an acknowledged authority on the subject. The book from which I propose to read is called A Treatise on Statute Law, founded on Hardcastle on Statutory Law. It is by the late William Feilden Craies, M.A. The references are made to page 190 and following pages:—
"There are two forms of interpretation clause. Where the word defined is declared to ‘mean' so-and-so, the definition is explanatory and prima facie restrictive. In the other, where the word defined is declared to ‘include’ so-and-so, the definition is extensive.”
It is a peculiar use of the word "extensive". As the context shows later it means that it extends the range or ambit of the term—gives it a wider scope. It goes on:—
"Sometimes the definition contains the words ‘mean' and ‘include'"—
which I believe is the form of the amendment following mine—
"which inevitably raises a doubt as to interpretation".
The author does not commend it. The footnote is: "See Ilbert, page 281." Now, here is an important consideration:—
"An interpretation clause which extends the meaning of a word does not take away its ordinary meaning".
In a later amendment where the definition, in its extensive function, is of importance, I have introduced—it is amendment No. 29—an interpretation. It is paragraph (b), sub-section (2) of Section 6: "The expression ‘indecent or obscene' as applied to a book includes, besides its accepted meaning whatever is...". Now, if I may return to this book for a moment, it goes on:—
"An interpretation clause which extends the meaning of a word does not take away its ordinary meaning."
Those who attacked the former Censorship Board for breaking the law, disregarding the law, and other enormities, based their criticism on their interpretation of "includes" as equivalent to "means", and held the erroneous view that what followed in the Act of 1929 after "includes" confines the board to consideration of just those things, so that a book which was frankly obscene was excluded from the purview of the censorship unless it incited. I am speaking now of actual criticisms of which I was painfully aware. To continue:—
"Another important rule with regard to the effect of an interpretation clause is, that an interpretation clause is not to be taken as substituting one set of words for another, or as strictly defining what the meaning of a term must be under all circumstances, but rather as declaring what may be comprehended within the term where the circumstances require that it should be so comprehended."
If I may anticipate the amendment that I have later, I would say it was on this consideration that I introduced it as a new sub-section (2): to make it appropriate and relevant to the immediate context. I take the words in regard to "indecent matter" in the clause of the Constitution as meaning "any matter the publication of which and the general distribution thereof would be likely to affect public morals injuriously". The ordinary, plain meaning of "indecent" or "obscene" is whatever is contrary to or offensive to chastity; whatever brings shame—or, as a poet would say, the blush of shame—to a chaste cheek is indecent. But we are not dealing here with personal or individual morality so much as in the legislation providing for the protection of social morality. On that account I have preferred, instead of the plain, ordinary, natural meaning, this meaning taken from Part III of the Principal Act. I think that is all I need say at the moment.