REFORMING THE LORDS .0 'ottl Lord Devlin your last issue Mr.
R. A. Cline refers to a sPeech I made at Winnipeg on October 16. He says that I tlescribed the Conservative Government's establishment of the Vassall inquiry as a deliberate attack on press freedom.' He comments that as a former judge I should not have disclosed my Political attitude in this manner and questions Whether the speech was a sample of my political leanings.
referred in this speech to the Vassall inquiry When I was talking about the situation in which a Journalist might be compelled to disclose his sources.
I said that in ordinary court proceedings such a situation could rarely, if ever, arise, and that an exceptional situation was deliberately created ,by the Government when it set up the inquiry. I added that the Government had been provoked to set up the inquiry by some sensational and irresponsible Journalism and that I thought the explosion had Cleared the air.
The Winnipeg Tribune devoted a column to the sPeech without referring to this part of it so that
I can get no help from that. My notes, from which 1 do not believe that 1 substantially departed, read: Government caused clash by ordering inquiry.
, Government provoked by sensational and
irresponsible reporting.
Explosion cleared the air.
The Times of October 20 reported me as saying that 'the explosion against the press over the Vassall case was deliberately provoked by the Government, and that it had cleared the air.' No doubt there are Other reports which Mr. Cline has seen and I have not, since he would hardly have translated the Times report into an accusation by me that the Government had deliberately attacked press freedom. I have therefore written this letter to put the record straight. But since I am writing it, I must say that I disagree with Mr. Cline's view that persons Who have held judicial office should not thereafter comme.nt on events of this sort that took place during their term of office. If I had thought that the Vassall inquiry was a deliberate attack on press freedom, I should not have hesitated to say so. If it is 'a political leaning' to' object to any govern- ment deliberately attacking the freedom of the Press or any other established freedom, I hope and believe that the vast majority of my fellow- countrymen also lean that way. There is, perhaps, another point of general in- terest. To summarise a speech as it is being de- livered, and so as to get not only the phrases right hut also the general sense and balance, must be extremely difficult and require a very high degree of training. I doubt if the ordinary journalist is any longer equipped for the task. A script handed out in advance seems now to be invariably ex- pected and I would rather blame myself for dis- appointing the expectation on this occasion than complain of misreporting. Nevertheless, if after- dinner speeches that have any serious content are to consist of a reading of a paper, it is rather a dismal Prospect for speakers of the old school. But per- „ ER. A. CLINE writes: 'I had no report other than mat which appeared in The Times, and I must say that the content of that report appears to me at any !'ate to be at variance with Lord Devlin's notes and IS recollection of his speech.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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