Letters to the Editor
Frogmania Admiral Sir William James The Webbs • Robert Blake Wards of the State Raymond Fletcher The Salary Squeeze Miss M. G. G. Gregory Wilson and Bowers Hugh P. .Rantage Cranwell College A Cranwell Parent Dealing with Terrorists Constantine FitzGibbon Henry Ward Beecher Gwilym 0. Griffith In Praise of Fascists F. X. O'Hara
FROG MANIA
SIR,—In your article (May 18) you say that the censors have occasionally refused to meet authors, but when 1 sent in a typescript of a book 1 was informed that the names of the censors and their place of work were a closely guarded secret, and it was not until one of your correspondents, presumably unaware of this, gave these details that my curiosity was satisfied. I have never heard any ex-plonation for this secrecy, which is a recent innovation.
. The common-sense approach to the task of ensuring that nothing dangerous to the State appears in print would be for the censors to invite an author to meet them so that they could explain why they wish certain matter deleted, and if the author has valid arguments for retention he could state his case. Permitting an anonymous department to destroy the work of, perhaps, two or three years by a blunt 'this book cannot be published' is placing far too much power in the hands of men who are fallible and may not always be well versed in world affairs and what has been published in other countries. This censorship is inevitably uneven. A young, inexperienced author will ruefully accept the verdict; an experienced author will return to the charge and if his protestations are ignored will pub- lish. what he is confident can do no harm; a Very Important Person, writing history or memoirs, will decide for himself what to include.
On all counts it is very desirable that this unevenness should be ironed out, and that could be at least partly achieved if this rather absurd cloak of secrecy was removed.—Yours faithfully,
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