A Press Free and a Press Fettered
The decision of the Imperial Press Conference to set on record its views on the freedom of the Press is welcome, though any resolu- tions adopted on that subject will merely have the effect of proclaim- ing principles ,which are faithfully observed already in Great Britain and every British Dominion. But the proclamation of the principles, with a view to raising standards elsewhere that badly need to be raised, may prove in the end of high value. For over wide areas of the world freedom of the Press as understood in this country is non- existent. So experienced a journalist as Sir Roderick Jones went so far as to say that in that respect the world is in a worse situation than ever before in his lifetime. The fatal course to adopt would be to decide that correspondents from countries where British corre- spondents are allowed no normal facilities and no normal freedom shall be allowed no facilities and no freedom here. That would be levelling down when the one essential is to level up. It is, no doubt, galling that Russian correspondents should reap, as they do, in London the benefit of the freedom that Britain believes in, while British correspondents are virtually ostracised in Moscow because Russia does not believe in freedom, but that must not check endeavours, persistent and tireless, to work for the ideal through U.N.O. If the basic principle of reciprocity in facilities for the collection and transmission of news fails to secure general recogni- tion, then a circle of those nations which are ready to recognise it should be formed outside U.N.O., with a view to its being gradually widened. For the wells of truth to be sealed is almost as bad as for them to be poisoned.
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