THE TABLET, July 4th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5902

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JULY 4th, 1953

NINEPENCE

M in is te r in g to G row ing Numbers : The Need for Vocations. By John Fitzsimons

Society and W om en ’s Vocations: By Alan Keenan, o .f .m .

A Poor SHOW: Incompetent Staff-Work at Strasbourg. By Christopher Hollis, M.P.

Orphans’ Return : The End of the Finaly Affair

S ignor N en n i’s Ambitions: From Our Special Correspondent in Rome

The Glass o f Language : The Testament of Wittgenstein. By J. M. Cameron

The R e lic s o f St. B enedict: By John Stephan, O.S.B. B o o k R e v i e w s : By Desmond Schlegel, O.S.B., John Biggs-Davison, Roland Hill, John Eales,

Derek Stanford, J. C. Marsh-Edwards, Ursula Branston, and A. Gregory Murray, O.S.B. Correspondence from J. H. Crehan, S.J., Canon Alban Burrett, H. M. Margoliouth, George A. Floris,

and Illtud Evans, O.P.

MONOPOLY OF A MEDIUM ? T HE American sensational Press has done worse things than American commercial television ; but if there were - no Press a t all in this country, only two o r three papers from the same chartered body, the same arguments th a t we hear today could be invoked, with this American experience treated as an awful warning. The freedom o f the Press in this country has meant th a t the largest circulation, although n o t the biggest influence, has gone to the most sensational and crude newspapers ; but the principle o f freedom has meant an extraordinary range o f richness and variety, which has included th e religious Press and the weeklies o f opinion ; and a jo u rn a l like T he Tablet, which could never have come into existence i f our ancestors had no t decided in favour o f freedom o f expression, owes it to the principle o f its being to speak in defence o f th a t principle now.

I t is surprising to find the A rchbishop o f Canterbury telling the Canterbury Diocesan Conference :

“ Putting television in to the hands o f carefully chosen people is n o t monopoly. Jt is commonsense.” W hat in the world is monopoly but putting something exclusively in to certain hands ? And the history o f England is full o f the use and abuse o f this principle by Governments, particularly the Stuarts, when it was rightly described, in the stric t meaning o f the word, as monopoly—one set o f men being licensed and allowed to do something, and shielded by law from com petition while they do it. The debate is rendered much more difficult a t the s ta rt if things are not called by their tru e names. I f the monopoly is continued it will be because people have been content to let themselves be stampeded, w ithout having any knowledge o f the various fruitful alternatives which are in fact open.

N o r is it easy to follow the reasoning o f the Archbishop when he tells th e same Conference :

“The fact th a t sponsored TV would have to be strictly controlled disposes o f the argum ent th a t if there is a free Press there should be free TV.” There are limits imposed on the newspapers, as in their treatm ent o f divorce news, ju s t as there are limits imposed on the film industry. Each medium o f communication is distinctive, but the fact th a t they require to be trea ted differently does no t lead logically to the conclusion th a t two o f them should be, as they are, free, with certain lim itations, while the th ird should not be free a t all. In p roportion as it comes to be understood th a t television is an invention comparable to printing, the country should hesitate to commit itself blindly to a principle which has been on balance decisively and rightly rejected after prolonged experience.

A few days before the A rchbishop o f Canterbury spoke his colleague o f York had said :

“Television’s influence in the future is incalculable. It may easily become the most powerful o f all instrum ents in the form ation o f opinion and o f national character, fo r it is alm ost impossible to exaggerate the influence it will have over the young. I t is, therefore, o f vital im portance th a t it should be under the control o f those who will use it for the good o f the nation.” Perhaps ancient memories were stirring here, for Queen Elizabeth’s Injunctions given by Her Majestie, issued in the first year o f her reign, to control the printing o f books, ran as follows :

“Item , because there is a great abuse in the printers of bokes, which for covetousnes chiefly regard n o t what they print, so thei may have gaine, whereby arriseth great dysorder by publicatyon o f vnfrutefull, vayne and infamous bokes and papers : The Quenes maiestie straytly chargethe and commandeth, th a t no manner o f person shall print any manner o f boke o r paper, o f what sort, nature, o r in what language soever it be, excepte the same be first