Liberty of the press, as all ther forms of liberty, is not feompatible with the Period of tutelage, Under' such a trus-Gieeship, the conception of liber-untenable, for the trustee has the right to determine what shall be thought, written and Published, But the trustee wise jigs the responsibility of protecting his obedient ward. That is exactly the quarrel*between the "China Times" and the censor. the "China Times" obeyed the Sensor but got its machinery 'Txoken and its types thrown down by irate labourers, who wanted to know why a' newspaper ignored a valid item of news, of particularly special interest to them, when it was news, Was the newspaper a newspaper or a mere organ of thp censor? To this the belligevent "China Times," which with the equally belligerent "Ta Kung Pao" of Tientsin alone! among. vernacular newspapers publishes a daily editorial of ome spiritual and literary replied forensically. The newspapers were ignored by, the Inbourers perhaps because they have become so wholly dominated by censorship that not even a riot could bestir them. The "China Times" reply is of intense historical interest, particularly as it affects the foreign press who also suffer from censorial idiosyncracit (although neither so open or 80 Vicious as with the Chinese press)
"During this period of violent so-velal changes, farmers, labourers: "and. merchants, have suffered severely. Newspapers have. suf-ered particularly on account of their peculiar position in the present scheme of our social or-
But, during the past few months, we have never flinched in the face of a hostile environment. We might not have said all that we wanted to say, but we ha already said more than most of contemporaries. We might not have printed every report that awe wanted to print, but we have! actually printed many reports which would have been regarded sas dangerous by our contempt aries. We adopted such a policy eeause we regarded it, as being! the paramount duty of a news-Paper. Yet what is our reward for, all this endeavour? We, of -eourse, expected no reward, bat we do: think that we have the ight to exist, as long as we can honestly fulfil the mission of our profession. Not only have we not been. given any protection, Dut have been molested and persecut ed: at every turn, The affair of yesterday (last Sunday) was rrowning spectacle. A mob of 50 broke into our printing establishment in broad daylight and molished much of it. No police came to our assistance; no ins quiry was made about the case the authorities after the damage had been done, What was the cause of this yaid on us by a mob? They: themselves declared that it was because we had refused to publish the news of certain labour distur-Ihances, They declared that they] would also smash up the other printing shops. Whether this Niolent action was caused as they explained it, we are not in a po tion to judge. We shall, how-jer, make certain explanations with regard to this point.
The day that this labour disturbance took place, our reporter veovered the entire " story.. The settlement authorities requested to withhold the story until the "following day. During that fol-Jowing day, when we had already] composed the story' and it was in "type, we received word: from the censors that the local party, head-4 quarters had instructed them to siwithhold the story. In our" issue of March 7, a few advertisements Appeared where _advertiseme "go not usually appear because this story had been taken out and the space had to be filled. This should be. conclusive proof that it was not our intention to- suppress the story.
When we obeyed the censors, the mob demolished our office; but should we disobey the censors, then a postal ban will be put on our newspaper. What are we g0- ing to do in the circumstances? 'We shall be prosecuted if we disobey the official order; yet when we carry' out an official order with a hope-of avoiding official prosecution, we are not protected from the consequences of obedience to the official order!
What. we have _experienced, must have been' experienced by myriads of Chinese. The law gives us no protection; the Government seems not to. be able to maintain justice and _righteousness. Nobody cares if you do right or wrong. To what will this state of affairs-lead? This is truly something to worry about.
As for ourselves, we are not to be intimidated by such violence.
We shall carry on in the same spirit of fearlessness; we shall fight harder against the power of darkness. Will the Chinese people be with us in the fight?
The courageous editors of the "China Times" have indeed a most difficult task ahead of them. Secret censorship everywhere, in all countries, leads to abuses and press censorship in China is secret, in the sense that no definite statement in advance is made to the newspapers to guide them. Then there are a multitude of censors, political and military, and finally there is the most pernicious form of censorship, that of censorship as a personal favour. The particular story to which the "China Times" refers was most competently suppressed, but it should have been publ ed. There was no possible justice in its suppression. It was straight news of strike riot in the course of which some rioters were killed. That happens the world over and is everywhere news. It was suppressed because some individual had made a mistake and he was sufficiently influential to. keep his mistake out of type. Whereupon the enraged workers attacked the one militant newspaper in town which they had expected would not submit to] such base censorship. How the matter was straightened out, I do not know. Perhaps some intermediary with an exceedingly smooth tongue persuaded al parties concerned to forget i over a dish of sharksfins; perhaps the fire is still ablaze. But the noteworthy fact is that a newspaper had the strength of purpose to expose the workings of the censorship. And exactly by what right did the Municipal police request the newspaper to withhold a story for 24 hours? Exactly under what regulations do they do things of that sort? It was not} their story anyhow—it happened.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.