• A SPECTATOR
'S NOTEBOOK
SIR WALTER CITRINE was at great pains on Monday to insist that the decision of the Trades Union Congress to admit no journalist who is not a member of the National Union of Journalists to the annual conference now in progress was in no sense an invasion on the freedom of the Press. It is, of course, a flagrant and indefensible an attack on freedom of the Press, and that in at least two ways. The T.U.C. is attempting to force all journalists into the National Union of Journalists and to compel the newspapers to employ only men and women who belong to that union ; and it is preventing the papers from selecting for a particular piece of work the men who are most qualified for it. There is, of course, no discrimination against the N.U.J. in any newspaper office ; men may belong to it, or to the Institute of Journalists, or to nothing at all. They are there to do their professional work, and that is all that matters to the firm. But to have the T.U.C. banning individual reporters is as unwarrantable as the occasional refusals (in the past) of theatre managers to give seats to individual dramatic critics on the ground that their articles had not been sufficiently appreciative. Freedom of the Press is in- volved in both cases. The T.U.C. by its action is only putting the public on guard against the dangers inherent in pgssible trade union tyranny. That may be nobad thing. * * * *
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