For reasons which were unavoidable I was unable to be present during a considerable portion of this debate, and I suppose I must accept Senator Quirke's word for it, when he said it was three days' nonsense, but I do not at all accept the suggestion that he can blame Senator Sir John Keane if he produces a motion and the Seanad spends time and money on what Senator Quirke regards as three days' nonsense. Although I have heard some of the speeches, I do not propose to follow any of them. It would, no doubt, give me a certain amount of personal satisfaction to give my views on the various matters introduced in this debate, but I do not honestly believe that I would serve any useful purpose in taking up the time of the House. My only reason for rising at this stage is to put very briefly my own point of view, because I do not wish to give a silent vote on a matter debated at such length. Such a vote might cause considerable misunderstanding.
I opposed this particular Censorship Act when it was introduced. I am still of the opinion that it is not the best way to deal with the problem of immoral or undesirable literature by means of a Minister of State with the advice of a small committee deciding what is to be regarded as indecent or immoral, suitable or unsuitable reading for the people. I have still got that same inherent dislike of the State as the State making decisions as to what is to be regarded as immoral or what is to be regarded as indecent. On the whole, I am still unconvinced that you are reducing the amount of rubbishy reading by means of the present method as against a more open but definitely State-controlled method. At the present time we all know that there is quite a lot of this stuff being produced, sometimes cheap sometimes at a high price. Sometimes I see books which I could regard as only rubbish. I do not claim any literary ability, but books have been published in regard to which I have wondered why anyone wrote them, unless it were for personal gain. I cannot see any literary merit in them, and I think there would not be more than a few of them sold if it were not whispered around that in a couple of months they would be censored. I know that is happening now.
Suppose you do not have the present Act: does that mean you do nothing? There are few, if any, countries in the world that are prepared to leave the question of dealing with literature absolutely free. Does anybody want—I certainly do not any more than any other member of the House—to see the sale of pornographic or indecent books on our stalls, and I doubt if there are many booksellers who would sell them. Internationally this problem has been dealt with. It is a problem of allowing the maximum amount of freedom together with reasonable protection for the young and immature. That is the problem, but I think it would be better to make a law dealing with it and let those who sell this literature or publish it run the risk of prosecution in the court at the instance of the Minister, which in the main, is the custom in England.
The fact that I say that that would be a better and an easier method than our present one does not mean that it would be perfectly satisfactory. It means that we would get at the worst type of books better than we are getting at them now if a bookseller was liable to be prosecuted in our courts for selling a book held to be indecent. That, I agree, would not solve every problem for the booksellers. There are a good many people, though a small minority in the country, who are by no means satisfied that this particular censorship is, or can be, a success. They would dislike less another method than the State saying what is to be regarded as indecent or not. Therefore the question as to whether this type of censorship or this type of dealing with literature is, or is not, desirable, is not a matter on which we can bandy words; in which someone accuses someone else of being narrow-minded, or some other person may accuse me of being immoral, because I do not like the system which the majority of the House considers should be applied here. It is a case for frank discussion, a case for free argument and for a proper difference of opinion.
My principal reason for speaking is that I could not support this motion for several reasons. On my reading of the Act it seems to me that the question of public confidence in the committee does not arise at all. It is the Minister that censors the books, and the Act provides that he shall have an advisory committee. The only person who has to have confidence in that committee is the Minister. The public may or may not know the names of that committee. They are not secret but the public generally do not know the names. There is, therefore, no question of public responsibility in regard to this committee and it would be utterly absurd for us to say that the public have or have not confidence in this committee.
If we were to pass a motion of this kind you would get the impression that all that was wrong at the present moment—assuming that there is something and I am not debating that— simply lay with the committee and that to remove this committee would mean that every person who had a book banned would be satisfied. It is most unlikely that there would be any substantial difference if we changed the committee. Any committee of five persons are bound to differ, and I cannot conceive any censorship committee which could not be accused by someone of sins of omission and by some other persons of sins of commission. I have nothing but respect for people who give their time to this task—it seems to me an utterly impossible task —of dealing with books submitted to them, and giving an opinion as to whether these books do or do not cross the borderline. I am not prepared to criticise the people who are prepared to give that great service. This is an Act of Parliament, the law of the land, and they are carrying it out. To attack the committee, to my mind, is a mistake.
There has been a tendency to show too little faith in the common sense, in the reasonably high moral standard of our own people generally. Senator Kehoe said that if you leave the young to themselves they would be all right, that youth left to itself was generally all right. I am not prepared to go quite as far as Senator Kehoe did, but I think he has got the right end of the idea if he means that you cannot have the State continually interfering with the youth and that if you leave them alone, as far as the State is concerned, they are more likely to go right than by interference.
Senator Hayes hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that it was not by prevention or simply by censorship that you make a strong healthy moral nation, one where you need not be afraid of immoral literature or of attempts to make money out of indecent books. You are going to get that by inculcating parental responsibility in the first place; a good standdard of teaching, and the responsibility of the Churches. I do not like the suggestion that morals, the true basis of which must be religion, can be set out in a standard to be judged by a Minister even with the advice of a committee. Although I would like to see this Act changed, I am not quite satisfied that no Government of the present day could or ought to change it substantially. Senator Sir John Keane wants to know how we know that the public desires censorship by this committee. No one knows anything with any degree of certainty about the public, even after a general election, even much less before one. I do not think I am guessing too much when I say that the overwhelming majority at the present moment are quite content that their literature should be censored by a committee and that we are simply fooling ourselves if we imagine a committee has not got public confidence.
I am inclined to think, however, that there is a growing minority which is dissatisfied and which is becoming more vocal. It is perfectly proper for it to do so, but do not let us imagine that that is the light in which the majority will view the Act or is likely to do so in a short time. If I read it aright, it is an objection to the general principle of censorship and not an attack on a particular board. I do not believe that the authors and others who are working for freedom in this connection at present would be the tiniest bit satisfied if the five names were changed for five other names. Consequently, this motion is not one which, in my opinion, the Seanad ought to pass.
Before I sit down, I should like to refer to two ways in which I think the Act might be amended without in any way cutting across what I conceive to be public opinion at the moment. I think that the phrase that a book is banned because it is in its general tendency indecent and obscene ought to be deleted so far as the Minister's action is concerned. All it means is that the Minister has banned or forbidden the circulation of the particular book under the powers given to him in the Act. Why not say that and have done with it? There has been evidence in this debate that, rightly or wrongly, certain books have been censored because of one or two passages which made their circulation undesirable. When you make a list of these banned books and state in respect of each book that it is banned because it is indecent or obscene in its general tendency, you are doing what is absurd. Why not say that the Minister has banned the book under the powers given to him by the Act.
