A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT Sir,—It will be difficult to find adequate
justification for the closing down of about 500 weekly publications, many of which are important organs of public opinion, and an essential part of the national Press. By a stroke of the pen we have gone back to the Star Chamber decree of 1637. It was in 1663 that Sir Roger L'Estrange was appointed Censor in General of all printed matter, and he hunted down, even to the gallows, all who dared to over-ride his authority. The methods recently adopted by Government authority are hardly less arbitrary. In 1712 the Govern- ment method of suppressing the Press was to impose a tax of a halfpenny on all news-sheets. This was not done openly, but by smuggling a clause into an Act of Parliament which was chiefly concerned with the duties to be raised on soaps and fabrics. In July of that year Addison wrote in The Spectator, "This is a day on which many eminent authors will probably publish their last words."
Today we have established a very dangerous precedent in forbidding, in an extremely arbitrary manner, the appearance of 500 publications at a time when the free expression of opinion was of vital public importance. On what authority was this done? Was it on the authority of the Minis- ter of Fuel and Power alone, or the Cabinet, that this inroad on the liberty of the Press was made? The public need information on this point, and an assurance that this unfortunate precedent will never be acted upon in the future under such slight justification.—Yours &c.,
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