SAVING AUSTRALIA FROM SEDITION: CUSTOMS, THE
ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT AND THE
ADMINISTRATION OF PEACETIME POLITICAL
CENSORSHIP
Roger Douglas*
INTRODUCTION: CUSTOMS CENSORSHIP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST
COMMUNISM
For more than fifty years, Australian governments used a variety of legal powers to
harass revolutionary organisations, and in particular the Communist Party of Australia
(the CPA).1 After an historical review of these policies, this article examines
Commonwealth’s attempt between 1921–29 and 1932–37, to use its power under the
Customs Act to prohibit the importation of seditious literature.
Between 1920 and 1950, the Commonwealth passed a number of Acts and made
several Regulations to deal with the threats apparently posed by the CPA and other
revolutionary bodies.2 Amendments to the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) in 1920 made the
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*
School of Law and Legal Studies, La Trobe University,
1
In his history of the Communist Party of Australia between 1920–42 (The Reds (1998)),
Stuart Macintyre provides details of numerous bashings, raids, arrests, trials and prison
sentences (often in default, for non-payment of fines). He also provides details of
surveillance and infiltration of the party, actual and attempted deportations, and of
political censorship. For page references, see his index, at 473. Frank Cain, The Origins of
Political Surveillance in Australia (1983) (Origins) provides details of surveillance of the
Party, and some details of other anti-communist measures taken between 1920–1948. His
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization: an Unofficial History (1994) (ASIO) includes
details of post-war anti-Communist measures: see especially at 88–116. Don Watson, Brian
Fitzpatrick: A Radical Life (1979) provides numerous examples of anti-Communist measures.
Lawrence W Maher has written two comprehensive accounts of the post-war sedition trials
of communists: 'The use and abuse of sedition' (1992) 14 Sydney Law Review 287 and
'Dissent, disloyalty and disaffection: Australia's last cold war sedition case.' (1994) 16
Adelaide Law Review 1. In Roger Douglas, Trials of the Left, 1930–39 (Paper presented at
Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, 20–23 February 2001), I
present preliminary findings in relation to arrests and trials in connection with
participation in Communist-organised activities in the 1930s. See also the text below nn 2 to
8, 11–30 and the references cited therein.
2
War Precautions Repeal Act 1920 (Cth) s 12; Crimes (Amendment) Act 1926 (Cth); Crimes
Amendment Act 1932 (Cth); National Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations 1940 (Cth);
Communist Party Dissolution Act 1950 (Cth). The Approved Defence Projects Act 1947 (Cth)
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uttering and publication of seditious words a Commonwealth offence.3 (These
activities were already offences under state law.)4 Proclamations under the Customs Act
1901 (Cth) had the effect of prohibiting the importation of revolutionary literature.5 In
1926 and 1932, the Crimes Act was further amended. Bodies that advocated violent
revolution became unlawful associations, and criminal sanctions were attached to a
variety of acts by and on behalf of unlawful associations.6 In 1940, the UAP-UCP
government banned communist newspapers and periodicals under the National
Security (General) Regulations7 and shortly afterwards, banned the CPA, several
associated bodies, and several Trotskyist organisations under the newly made National
Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations.8 The Communist Party Dissolution Act 1950
(Cth) crowned thirty years of legislative attempts to curb the Communist Party.
The states, by contrast, showed little interest in anti-communist legislation. They
had inherited Britain's rich array of anti-dissent laws. The 'Code States'9 had embodied
many of these in their codes. In the remaining states they were in force either as
sections of state criminal legislation, or as common law offences. Offences included
both offences aimed specifically at attempts to challenge the authority of the state, and
'public order' offences aimed at both political and apolitical disorder.10 However they
largely antedated the emergence of the Communist Party, and states showed little
interest in making specific provision for communism. In the mid–1930s, the New South
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was directed at opposition to the development of the Woomera rocket range (which
involved both communist and non-communist activists). The National Emergency (Coal
Strike) Act 1949 (Cth) sought to cut off economic support for the 1949 miners' strike, and is
to be understood as an anti-communist measure insofar as the strike was seen at the time
as a communist-led strike. On these last two measures, see Watson, above n 1, 210–11, 221
(Watson incorrectly states that only 3 union leaders were imprisoned under the Act); Robin
Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists: Communism and the Australian Labour Movement, 1920–
1955 (1975), 239–42, 246–8.
3
New sections 24A to 24E were added by the War Precautions Repeal Act 1920 (Cth) s 12.
4
Criminal Code (Qld) ss 44–6, 52; Criminal Code (WA) ss 44–6, 52. In the other states
(including Tasmania, which subsequently codified the relevant law (Criminal Code (Tas) ss
66, 67)), seditious libel, uttering seditious words, and participation in a seditious conspiracy
were common law offences.
5
See below nn 32–4, 36.
6
On this legislation, see Roger Douglas, 'Keeping the Revolution at Bay: The Unlawful
Associations Provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act' (2001) 22 Adelaide Law Review
261.
7
Gazette, 24 May 1940 (94 of 1940), 20 June 1940 (114 of 1940), under National Security
(General) Regulations reg 17B.
8
Gazette, 15 June 1940 (110 of 1940) (CPA, League for Peace and Democracy, Minority
Movement); 20 June 1940 (114 of 1940) (Printers' Investment Co Pty Ltd, Modern Publishers
Pty Ltd, Forward Press Pty Ltd); 24 June 1940 (117 of 1940) (Communist League); 6 July
1940 (127 of 1940) (Revolutionary Workers' League); 8 August 1940 (154 of 1940)
(Australian Youth Council); 24 February 1941 (34 of 1941) (League of Young Democrats).
9
Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania.
10
Summaries of the current law in these areas are to be found in Butterworths, Halsbury's
Laws of Australia, vol 9 (at 7 July 1998) 130 Criminal Law, 'VI(2) Offences against the
Government and the Public' [130–12000]–[130,12310], and LBC, Laws of Australia, vol 10 (at
1 February 1997) Criminal Law, '10.10 Public Order'. While the law has been liberalised in
some respects (especially in relation to public assemblies), the current law still reflects its
British antecedents in many respects.
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Wales government prepared a Disloyalty Bill, but it did not proceed with it. In 1948, the
Victorian government prepared state anti-communist legislation, but did not present it
to Parliament. In the aftermath of the Communist Party Case, the three non-Labor states
(South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia) indicated that they would be
prepared to refer to the Commonwealth the powers necessary for it to re-enact the
Dissolution Act,11 but they took no legislative steps to outlaw the Party.
The Commonwealth's enthusiasm for enacting anti-communist measures was not
reflected in a corresponding enthusiasm for prosecuting communists. Despite the
periodic ferocity of communist revolutionary rhetoric, no-one was prosecuted under
the Commonwealth sedition legislation until 1948.12 Despite the Commonwealth
Investigation Branch's concern with workers' defence forces in the early 1930s, no
action was taken to prosecute communists for unlawful drilling.13 Harold Devanny
remains the only person ever to have been tried for an offence under the unlawful
associations provisions.14 During the early years of World War II, when about 50
communists were prosecuted for offences arising out of the CPA's opposition to the
war, fewer than half the prosecutions were under the National Security (General)
Regulations rather than the National Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations.15
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11
Leicester Webb, Communism in Australia:. A Survey of the 1951 Referendum (1954) 43.
12
The most comprehensive accounts of the use of the Commonwealth sedition legislation are
those provided by Maher, above n 1.
13
During the depression years, the CPA had established Workers' Defence Corps (WDC) in
several states. A Labor Defence Corps had been established in the northern coalfields of
New South Wales in the aftermath of violent confrontations between police and striking
miners. A Workers' Defence Army also operated in the area. A body called the
Unemployed Defence Corp aroused concern when its members practiced drill on the Perth
Esplanade. Some of these bodies seem to have amassed arms and ammunition, but these
were never used, and their whereabouts tended to become known to the police. The WDC
provided protection for communist speakers from their New Guard opponents, and was
sometimes involved in organising resistance to attempted evictions. Insofar as its members
used violence, this involved brawling, physical assaults, and the use of blunt instruments,
rather than firearms. See Macintyre, above n 1, 210–11; Miriam Dixson, 'Rothbury' (1970) 17
Labour History 14, 22–6; Andrew Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier: Conservative
Paramilitary Organisations in New South Wales, 1930–32 (1989) 79–80. The Governor-General
may give directions by proclamation forbidding participation in military exercises and a
person who disobeys these directions is guilty of an offence: Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 27.
14
Harold Devanny, the publisher of the Workers' Weekly, was charged with having solicited
money for an unlawful association, on the basis of an appeal in the Workers' Weekly for
funds for an anti-War conference. His conviction was overturned on appeal to the High
Court: R v Hush; Ex parte Devanny (1932) 48 CLR 487. Charges against others who had been
charged under the legislation were not proceeded with. For a discussion of his case, see
Douglas, above n 6.
15
This estimate is based on cases that were listed in one or more of the following sources:
indexes to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Argus and the Melbourne Herald;
cases referred to in publications of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties; and cases that
were the subject of National Archives of Australia files whose titles indicated that they
related to prosecutions under relevant regulations. Precise estimates are complicated by
lack of information about some defendants' politics. However, of those defendants who
appeared to have been communist sympathisers, fewer than half were charged under the
Subversive Associations Regulations and of these, about a third were also prosecuted for
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Despite the party's initial opposition to the war, no communist was prosecuted under
the political sections of the Crimes Act, nor was any attempt made to use the unlawful
associations provisions to have the Party declared unlawful.16
In some respects the states were similarly reticent. A small number of communists
were prosecuted during the depression years for uttering seditious words, but they
appear to be the only communists ever to have been prosecuted under state sedition
laws.17 States were, however, far less reticent in relation to prosecution for 'public
order' offences. Between 1930 and 1955, over a thousand people were prosecuted
summarily for offences such as offensive behaviour; insulting language; resisting
arrest; disorderly conduct; and illegally distributing leaflets as a result of their
participation in communist-organised protests.18
A rather different picture emerges when one examines the use of administrative
harassment as an anti-communist measure, although the difference is more striking at
Commonwealth level. Harassment took place at all levels. Local governments
regularly refused to allow communists to hire municipal halls.19 State governments
occasionally dismissed communists on relatively flimsy pretexts.20 They occasionally
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offences under the General Regulations. Macintyre, above n 1, 401 suggests that the figure of
50 is an under-estimate, but he does not point to any sources to support this contention.
16
There are no references to Crimes Act prosecutions in any of the sources cited at above n 15.
(It is unlikely that a political prosecution would have escaped the attention of both the
press and the Australian Council for Civil Liberties.) See also Maher's statement ('Dissent,
Disloyalty and Disaffection', above n 1, 13–14) that Burns was the first person to be
prosecuted for a Commonwealth sedition offence. The government relied on its powers
under regulations made under the National Security Act 1939 (Cth) both to ban communist
newspapers and to ban the CPA.
17
Two Queenslanders—Fred Paterson and Phil Bossone—were charged with uttering
seditious words. Paterson was acquitted, and at his second trial Bossone was convicted and
released on a good behaviour bond: Ross Fitzgerald, The People's Champion, Fred Paterson:
Australia's only Communist Party Member of Parliament (1997) 49–52; Workers' Weekly 3
October 1930, 2. Robert Knox (whose politics are not clear) was committed to trial on a
charge of uttering seditious words by the Hobart Police Court: Sydney Morning Herald, 25
May 1932. (I have not found any report of his fate). Henry Wilkins was convicted and
sentenced to imprisonment for 'sedition' in Western Australia: Geoffrey Bolton, A Fine
Country to Starve in (1994), 147. An IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) activist, E A
Dickenson, was convicted and imprisoned in South Australia in 1928 for publishing
seditious words: Cain, Origins, above n 1, 200.
18
See Douglas, above n 1, for approximate (but conservative) details of arrests and trials for
public order offences in the 1930s.
19
Examples include the Wollongong and North Fremantle Councils' refusal to allow their
halls to be used for a meeting of the Friends of the Soviet Union (Sydney Morning Herald, 23
April 1932, 17; Justina Williams, The First Furrow (1976), 17); the cancellation by the
Melbourne City Council of an agreement to let the Town Hall for an anti-war conference
(Notes on Communism No 46, NAA (National Archives of Australia): A467
BUN94/SF42/64 286); and refusals by the Sydney City Council to permit its Town Hall to
be used for a showing of the film, Ten Days that Shook the World or for the opening of the
CPA's 1937 election campaign (Workers' Weekly 11 December 1936, 10 August 1937).
20
Examples are rare. A New South Wales schoolteacher was dismissed on her return from a
visit to the Soviet Union, but was subsequently reinstated: Macintyre, above n 1, 348;
Workers' Weekly 10 February 1933. On his return from May Day celebrations in Moscow, as
a delegate of the Australian Railways Union, LA Mullins was dismissed from his job as a
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used their powers to censor communist films and plays.21 State police monitored
communist activities and occasionally seem to have acted as agent-provocateurs.22
They enforced public order legislation with greater vigour when dealing with
communists than when dealing with their sometimes disorderly opponents.
Communist violence normally resulted in arrests; anti-communist violence did so only
exceptionally.23 However, state persecution of communism and communists was, in
many ways, subdued. At worst, the states appear to have dismissed only a handful of
communists from public employment. The states took no steps to arm themselves with
the power to ban communist publications, and the states' limited foray into the
political censorship of theatres was distinguished mainly by the half-heartedness of its
administration. Even in relation to public protests, state governments and police were
sometimes willing to accommodate communist protesters.
The Commonwealth's reticence in relation to prosecutions contrasts far more
strikingly with the considerable use it made of its administrative powers. The
Commonwealth security services monitored the activities of Communists and their
sympathisers, and even if this did not entail other sanctions, it was at the cost of their
privacy and their sense of security.24 Communist writers were refused grants on the
basis of their politics alone. Public servants' promotion prospects were impaired if they
were communists or even suspected of having communist sympathies. Communists
became effectively ineligible for appointment to most public service positions.25 The
communication of information about a person's communist affiliations could expose
them to private sanctions including loss of, or failure to gain, employment.
Both before and after World War II, the Commonwealth used its passport-granting
powers to obstruct attempts by local communists to travel overseas. It also attempted
to use its immigration powers to exclude foreign communists from Australia.26
Sometimes, as in the case of Egon Kisch, such attempts ended in humiliation.27
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railways porter on the grounds that he had been absent without leave: Sydney Morning
Herald, 5 November 1932, 13. A one-legged Gallipoli veteran was reportedly dismissed
from his Melbourne City Council employment on the grounds of his alleged communist
associations: Argus, 11 May 1933, 6.
21
Watson, above n 1, 82.
22
See Macintyre, above n 1, 192, 217–9, 226, 270, 402; Cain, Origins, above n 1, 254–6.
23
See Macintyre, above n 1, 60, 88, 156–7, 193–4, 226. Moore's account of the 'Secret Army'
(above n 13) includes details of numerous incidents where police turned a blind eye to anticommunist violence. There were, however, limits to the level of violence that police were
willing to tolerate, and by the late 1930s, the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties was
expressing satisfaction at the willingness of the Victoria police to provide protection to
communist speakers.
24
See, eg, Cain, Origins, above n 1, 254, who contrasts the vigour with which the
Commonwealth Investigation Bureau (the CIB) monitored the activities of communists and
IWW activists, with its relative unconcern with indigenous and even foreign Fascism. See
also Macintyre, above n 1, 70. The role of ASIO in supervising communism and
communists is discussed in, inter alia, Cain, ASIO, above n 1, 90, 96–113.
25
Ibid 106–13.
26
Ibid 104–6.
27
Egon Kisch, a Czech-born journalist, had been invited to Australia by the Australian branch
of the Congress Against War and Fascism, to address an anti-war conference. He was
initially denied entry to Australia, but was allowed to land following a successful habeas
corpus application: R v Carter; Ex parte Kisch (1934) 52 CLR 234. He was then required to
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Sometimes, however, they succeeded. The Commonwealth also made some use of its
powers under the unlawful associations legislation. In 1932–33, the Commonwealth
took steps to warn owners of public halls that they would be guilty of offences under
the unlawful associations legislation if they allowed communists to use those halls.28
In the 1920s and at least once during the life of the Scullin government, the
Commonwealth used its (questionable) powers under the Post and Telegraph Regulations
to seize and destroy communist literature.29 Between 1932–37, it used its powers under
the unlawful associations legislation to forbid the transmission of communist literature
through the post.30 Finally, as mentioned above, between 1921–29 and 1932–37, the
Commonwealth made extensive use of its power under the Customs Act to prohibit the
importation of seditious literature. This article examines this last attempt to save
Australia from the seductions of communism.
In some ways, customs censorship is to be understood in terms of the
determination of Australian governments—and of conservative Australian
governments in particular—to act and be seen as acting against communism. But
customs censorship cannot be understood simply in these terms. Even from the brief
discussion of anti-communist measures given here, it should be apparent that there can
be a sharp disjuncture between different manifestations of anti-communism. The rises
and falls of customs censorship correspond only imperfectly with fluctuations in other
forms of anti-communist activity. In the late 1920s, customs censorship was being
enforced rigorously, at a time when the Commonwealth was making almost no use of
other anti-communist measures. In the Cold War period, customs censorship was one
of the few weapons not used by the Commonwealth in its war on communism. While
customs censorship can be partly understood in terms of the politics of the
governments that enforced it, the enthusiasm of conservative Commonwealth
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undergo a dictation test in Scots Gaelic, which despite his familiarity with most European
languages, he failed. A conviction for being illegally in Australia was overturned when the
High Court held that Scots Gaelic was not a 'European language' for the purposes of the
Immigration Act 1901 (Cth): R v Wilson; Ex parte Kisch (1934) 52 CLR 221. He thoroughly
enjoyed his visit, and the government's successive embarrassments: Egon Erwin Kisch,
Australian Landfall (1937). There are numerous accounts of his visit, and the surrounding
circumstances including: C M H Clark, A History of Australia (1987) vol 6, 463–76;
Macintyre, above n 1, 270–3. International Labor Defence published a pamphlet, How the
Kisch-Griffin Ban was Smashed. Knowles advised that the pamphlet should not be barred
from transmission through the post: Knowles to Director-General, Posts &Telegraphs, 27
September 1935, NAA: A467/1 BUN89/SF42/9.
28
It was an offence under the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 30FC to allow premises to be used by an
unlawful association. Attempts to enforce the section proved largely unsuccessful. First,
owners had to be identified. Second, they had to be warned that a forthcoming meeting fell
within the section. (Sometimes there was little time between the Commonwealth becoming
aware of a proposed meeting, and the date of the meeting.) In relation to premises
occupied by the Party, a problem arose in relation to the identification of the lessees of the
premises. (These changed frequently.) See generally, NAA: A467 Bundle 94/SF42/8
32/1254.
29
Cain, Origins, above n 1, 199, 245.
30
See Douglas, above n 6. In the late 1920s, the Commonwealth Investigation Branch had
urged that the provisions be used against the IWW, but Sir Robert Garran, the SolicitorGeneral, had recommended the use of the Post and Telegraph Act to stop the transmission of
IWW publications: Cain, Origins, above n 1, 199.
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governments for censorship contrasts with the general indifference of their
conservative state counterparts to the 'problem' of locally produced communist
literature.
This article examines how this system of political censorship worked and failed to
work. It highlights the degree to which the operation of law is dependent on the way
in which it is administered, and on the degree which administration can sometimes
produce slightly different legal regimes in different states. It highlights the degree to
which law can remain unchanged while its operation responds to changing external
pressures. It presents a system of censorship which was probably absurd, rather than
repressive, and one which collapsed partly because it was absurd, partly because it
was repressive, and partly because—in the end—it was clear that it was totally
ineffective and almost totally unnecessary. It highlights the degree to which
governments have been prepared to restrict political freedoms, but it also highlights
the political obstacles to their doing so.
POLITICAL CENSORSHIP: LAW
World War I gave the Commonwealth government a taste for political censorship, and
after its war-time powers expired, it used the Customs Act 1901 (Cth) to ban the
importation of seditious literature. Under s 52(g) of the Act, prohibited imports
included any item or class of items proclaimed as such by the Minister for Trade and
Customs. Using this power, the government had banned the importation of a number
of Irish Nationalist publications in the course of 1920.31 Then, on 31 January 1921, it
issued a general proclamation, banning the importation of literature that advocated the
violent overthrow of governments.32 This proclamation was soon superseded by a
further proclamation to similar effect, but which also proscribed the importation of
seditious literature.33 It declared the following to be prohibited imports:
literature wherein is advocated –
(a) the overthrow by force or violence of the established government of the
Commonwealth or of any State or of any other civilised country;
(b) the overthrow by force or violence of all forms of law;
(c) the abolition of organized government;
(d) the assassination of public officials;
(e) the unlawful destruction of property;
(f) wherein a seditious intention is expressed or a seditious enterprise advocated.
This proclamation remained in force until 17 December 1929 when the newly
elected Scullin (Labor) government rescinded the 1921 proclamation and replaced it
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31
These were: a pamphlet, Bond Certificate Campaign—First Loan of the Elected Government of
the Republic of Ireland (T&C 20/B3450) Gazette, 6 May 1920 (no 39 of 1920); a song entitled
'The Sinn Fein Volunteers' Customs Proclamation No 21 (T&C 20/B12328), dated 15
December 1920, Gazette, 17 December 1920 (no 112 of 1920); The Irish Republic. Why?
Customs Proclamation No 22 (T&C 20/B/12842), dated 23 December 1920, Gazette, 30
December 1920 (no 116 of 1920).
32
Customs Proclamation No 24 (T&C 21/B/365), Gazette, 3 February 1921 (No 11 of 1921).
33
Customs Proclamation No 37 (T&C 21/B/5230), dated 16 June 1921, Gazette, 23 June 1921
(No 55 of 1921). Cain wrongly gives the date as 1927: Cain, Origins, above n 1, 196.
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with a new proclamation in which the underlined sections were omitted.34 In addition,
the Minister of Trade and Customs was given the power to allow the importation of
otherwise prohibited works. On 28 July 1932 the Lyons (conservative)35 government
rescinded the 1929 proclamation.36 The 1932 proclamation basically restored the 1921
proclamation, but preserved the Minister's power to permit the importation of
otherwise prohibited literature. In 1934, the proclamation was superseded by the
Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations—Second Schedule—item 14, which was to the
same effect as the 1932 proclamation. In 1936, some consideration was given to
amending item 14 so that anarchist literature and literature directed against Fascism
and Nazism no longer fell within it. Nothing, however, came of this, and the regulation
remained in force, substantially unchanged, until 1983 when it was repealed as part of
a general overhaul of customs censorship.37 Under the new Regulation, the only
political publications to be barred from Australia were those which promoted, incited
or encouraged terrorism.38
The effect of the proclamation and the regulations was that prohibited literature
was governed by the general rules relating to political imports. Imported literature
could therefore be seized by customs officials if they reasonably believed that it was
prohibited.39 Aggrieved importers had to be notified that goods had been seized, but
unless they claimed the goods within one month of being notified, the goods were
deemed to be condemned.40 If an importer claimed the goods, the relevant Collector
could either take proceedings to have the goods condemned or require the owner to
enter an action for the recovery of the goods. If so, the goods were deemed to be
condemned unless the claimant entered an action within 4 months.41 Importation of
prohibited literature also made the importer liable to criminal sanctions, it being an
offence to import prohibited imports. In the event of offending literature finding its
way into Australia, it became a prohibited import and a person in possession of it
would be guilty of an offence if aware that it was a prohibited import.
Local productions of prohibited publications were not covered by the customs
legislation, but like prohibited foreign publications and indigenous seditious materials,
were covered by the general criminal law. The publication of literature advocating a
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34
Customs Proclamation No 181 (T&C 29B/2880), Gazette 19 December 1929 (No 118 of
1929).
35
In view of the frequent changes in the name of the urban non-Labor party between 1920–
50, and in view of the fact that some non-Labor governments were coalitions while others
were not, I shall use the term 'conservative' as the generic term for non-Labor governments.
36
Customs Proclamation No 221 (T&C 32/A2549), Gazette, 4 August 1932 (No 58 of 1932).
37
New Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations were made in 1956. This involved the renumbering of prohibited items, with seditious literature being item 21, the other categories
being grouped together as item 20. Items 20 and 21 were deleted from Schedule 2 by the
Hawke government: Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) (SR 331 of 1983)
reg 4. The Regulation came into operation on 1 February 1984.
38
Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations reg 4A(1A)(a)(ii), later reg 4A(1A)(iv). In 1990 the
relevant regulation was broadened. Express references to terrorism were replaced by a
general ban on material which promoted, incited or instructed in matters of crime or
violence: SR 39 of 1990.
39
Customs Act 1901 (Cth) ss 203 (goods suspected of being forfeited could be seized), 229
(prohibited imports are forfeited).
40
Customs Act 1901 (Cth) s 205.
41
Customs Act 1901 (Cth) s 207.
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seditious intention or a seditious enterprise would bring those responsible within the
Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) ss 24A, 24B and 24D, but not if done in good faith for the purpose
of securing intra-constitutional changes (s 24A(2) until 13 December 1960, now s 24F).
An organisation which advocated the violent overthrow of Australian or other
governments would, under s 30A of the Crimes Act, thereby be an unlawful association,
and the printing, publication, sale, or distribution of any publication of the
organisation thereby became an offence under s 30F. Some anarchist publications
might constitute prohibited imports, notwithstanding that their publication in
Australia would not constitute an offence, but in general, the local publication of a
work whose importation was prohibited would have constituted an offence under the
Crimes Act.
POLITICAL CENSORSHIP: ADMINISTRATION
The decision-making structure
Decisions in relation to particular works were almost invariably made only after
Customs officials came across suspect literature. It was rare for anyone outside the
Department of Trade and Customs (Customs) to seek to initiate the process of
determining whether a particular work was an unlawful prohibition.42 The only
example I have been able to discover of externally initiated inquiries related to
publications by the Jehovah's Witnesses. FW Tietuens, President of the St Vincent De
Paul Society, Albury, had written to Tom Collins, MHR (Country Party, Hume),
complaining about The Golden Age, a virulently anti-Catholic publication. The
complaint was referred to Thomas White, the Minister for Trade and Customs,43 who
in turn referred it to his Department, which referred it to the Attorney-General's
Department, which in turn decided that the book should be allowed in.44 There seem
to have been no external complaints in relation to particular pieces of Communist
literature.45 Customs was, however, periodically urged by the Investigation Branch to
take steps to prevent the importation of literature published by radical organisations.46
Customs officials became aware of illegal literature in two circumstances, first
where a person was returning to Australia, and second when unaccompanied goods
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42
White could be taken as implying otherwise. In the course of a speech during a 1935 debate
on censorship, he explained that books would sometimes be investigated for possible
banning on the basis of reviews, sometimes on the basis of lists of books banned overseas,
and sometimes following complaints from readers in Australia: Commonwealth,
Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 335. The files on seditious
literature suggest a somewhat different picture: decisions on bans were almost invariably a
response to an attempt to import a particular work. There is no evidence of pre-emptive
proscription. White may, however, have been referring to moral censorship.
43
Brief biographical details of politicians and administrators mentioned more than twice in
this article are provided in Appendix 1.
44
For the history of this complaint, see NAA: A425/122 39/1345.
45
One reason for the lack of complaints may be the thoroughness with which the Department
pursued communist literature prior to 1936. A second may be that those who would have
been distressed by the importation of such literature did not frequent the kinds of
bookshops where it was displayed for sale, and would therefore have been unaware of its
existence.
46
Cain, Origins, above n 1, 198–9.
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arrived in Australia as mail or freight. If the official suspected that a book was a
prohibited import, the official could seize the book and retain it, pending further
investigations. Following a decision to seize, the matter would be referred through the
Customs hierarchy. A middle-level officer would prepare a report for the state
Collector of Customs, the senior Customs official in the relevant state. Suspect
literature would normally be forwarded via the Comptroller-General to the AttorneyGeneral's Department for an opinion as to whether it fell within the proclamation or
(later) the regulation.47 In 1933, a decision was made to abandon the practice of
referring decisions to Attorney-General's. In October 1933, Edwin Abbott, the Acting
Comptroller-General advised his officers that the practice of referring books to the
Attorney-General's Department had been abandoned on the grounds that it was
unnecessary. The experience of Customs had been that its assessments of potentially
seditious works were almost invariably shared by the Attorney-General's Department.
Accordingly, Collectors were to decide whether publications fell within the
prohibition. Copies were to be kept in case of an appeal to the Minister. Collectors
were to advise the Comptroller-General of the names of all publications seized as
prohibited imports.48 Despite this advice, there was at least one case where a book was
referred to Attorney-General's in 1934.49
In 1935, it was decided that Attorney-General's should once more be consulted
before any publication was placed on the banned list. Coleman argues that the decision
to cease referring matters to Attorney-General's was prompted by disagreements
between the two departments, with Attorney-General's being considerably more
liberal than Customs.50 This seems questionable. In relation to the politically
controversial decision to continue the exclusion of the English publication, Labour
Monthly, from Australia in 1928, the Comptroller was sympathetic to its being
admitted, but Sir Robert Garran, Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department
argued for its continued exclusion.51 Files for the period 1932–33 disclose few
examples of serious disagreement between the two departments, and a 1935 review of
publications banned by Customs during its period of unsupervised decision-making
concluded that 57 out of 60 of the relevant publications were properly banned.52 There
_____________________________________________________________________________________
47
See Cain, Origins, above n 1, 243 for a discussion of the role of the Attorney-General's
Department in the 1920s.
48
Abbott (Acting Comptroller-General) to Officers, 6 November 1933, NAA: B13/0
1944/2540.
49
The Communist Way Out: NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/45 34/280.
50
Peter Coleman, Obscenity, Blasphemy and Sedition: One Hundred Years of Censorship in
Australia (1974) 84.
51
Cain, Origins, above n 1, 244–5.
52
Works which Attorney-General's considered not to be seditious included: The Life and
Struggles of Negro Toilers, NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/22 (handled under the 1929
proclamation); Bilten; A Blow at Intervention, NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/7. In November
1932, Knowles recommended that 4 of 5 publications (one consisting of 7 volumes) by
William F Brown were seditious, NAA: A467/1/BUN20/SF7/24. In July 1933, he advised
in relation to 13 pamphlets that all but two (The Victory of the Oil Workers and The Conditions
of the Proletariat in the USSR) were seditious: Knowles to Comptroller-General (CG) 11 July
33, NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/29. In contrast, between January 1932–December 1933, 66
publications were banned. Following the government's adoption of the more liberal policy
in relation to communist publications, the 60 publications banned without review by
Attorney-General's were all removed from the banned list.
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is, moreover, evidence that even after Attorney-General's was once more involved in
the process, its attitude was less liberal than some of the more liberal Customs officers.
However, the restoration of review of censorship decisions by Attorney-General's had
been sought by opponents of censorship, and was regarded by them as a victory for
the anti-censorship cause.53
Prior to 1935, Ministers were not usually involved in the process.54 However, there
was a right of appeal to the Minister in relation to a decision that a book was a
prohibited import55 and the Minister might be asked to exercise his discretion in cases
where people wished to import otherwise prohibited publications for legitimate
purposes. There was also statutory provision for appeals to a court against a decision
that an import was prohibited, but this was never used in relation to prohibited
literature. The stakes did not warrant the risk and the cost. As political censorship
became more controversial, Ministers and indeed Cabinet, sometimes became involved
in the process. The anti-censorship campaigner, W Macmahon Ball, told Menzies'
biographer that after he had complained to Menzies about the bans on several works,
Menzies had immediately taken steps to 'un-ban' them.56 In 1936, Cabinet decided to
admit the Information Bulletin of the Young Communist International, notwithstanding an
assessment by Sir George Knowles, Solicitor-General and Secretary of the AttorneyGeneral's Department, that it was a prohibited import.57 In 1937, Cabinet considered
how to deal with the Jehovah's Witnesses publication, The Golden Age.58
Once a publication was assessed as being a prohibited import, it was normally
added to a list. Listing did not affect the legal status of a publication. The purpose was
to guide officials in the event of a subsequent attempt to import the book. Officials
were also circularised in relation to publications that were removed from the banned
list. Initially, it had been government policy to keep the list a secret, lest disclosure of
banned titles give the works undue publicity.59 Under the Bruce-Page government,
_____________________________________________________________________________________
53
Watson, above n 1, 69.
54
A 1935 submission from White to Cabinet suggests otherwise. Writing of the then current
system, he claimed: 'Under this system the Minister for Customs makes the final decision,
and while the system causes some delay, it is better than prior to 1933 when practically all
the decisions were made by the Customs Department': 'Cabinet Agenda 1575' NAA:
A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3. This is inconsistent with Abbott's memorandum of 6 November
1933. The apparent inconsistency may be resolved if 'making the final decision' were to
mean 'making the final decision, in the event of being asked by an importer to do so'. Any
other meaning would mean that his statement would be inconsistent with the claim that
there was a right of appeal to the Minister, since this would be pointless if the Minister
routinely made the de facto final decision.
55
See question, Senator Rae (ALP, NSW) to Senator Pearce (UAP, WA) (representing Henry
Gullett, Minister for Trade and Customs), Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 20
October 1933, 3745. Appeals seem to have been rare, and there do not appear to be any
instances of a successful appeal.
56
A W Martin (assisted by Patsy Hardy), Robert Menzies: a Life, (1993) vol 1, 202.
57
NAA: A425/122 36/10585.
58
NAA: A425/122 39/1345.
59
Walter Greene (Nat, Richmond; Minister for Trade and Customs answering)), Frank
Brennan (ALP, Batman); Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives,
11 May 1921, 8273, Littleton Groom (Nat, Darling Downs, for Greene), answering Thomas
Ryan (ALP, West Sydney), ibid 19 July 1921, 10223.
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Ministers had been willing to make the list available—at least to parliamentarians.60
Under the Lyons government, the contents of the lists once more became a jealously
guarded secret. Even within the administration, details about prohibited publications
could not always be tracked down. Collectors were not always sure which books had
been banned by other Collectors. Even the Investigation Branch had trouble getting
access to an authoritative list.61 Importers were apparently allowed access to the list,
but the government was adamant that the contents of the list should not be disclosed
to the wider public.62 Indeed, while White was willing to supply MPs with a list of
books banned as obscene or blasphemous, he was not willing to supply them with a
list of publications banned as seditious.63 As late as 1936, White objected to a
suggestion from G Fitzpatrick (representing the Sydney Workers' Educational
Association) that a list of banned books be tabled at the start of each Parliamentary
session:
That, in my opinion, would be distinctly unwise because it is recognised in America that
what is called a 'banned book racket' is worked, and whilst I would not use those terms
as applying here, yet definitely the very mention of a book being banned and the press
giving it great publicity gives it an advertisement very often out of all proportion to its
worth in literature. That is if it were literature, and if it were propaganda obviously the
_____________________________________________________________________________________
60
Herbert Pratten (Nat, Parramatta; Minister for Trade and Customs and for Health) (answer
to Percy Coleman (ALP, Reid)), Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, 18 November 1927, 1633; Henry Gullett (Nat, Henty, Minister for Trade
and Customs) (answer to Charles Culley (ALP, Dennison)), Commonwealth, Parliamentary
Debates, House of Representatives, 18 March 1927, 1320.
61
The Commonwealth Investigation Branch was provided with lists by the Victorian
Collector of Customs, but these were sometimes incomplete. Browne, after reporting that
he had sent a list based on Victorian sources to his Director in Canberra, wrote to the
Collector stating that Central Customs had permitted the Director to sight a list of
prohibited literature, and that the Victorian list had included only about six of the items on
the list. Since the list in question had included eight publications, there would have been
about two publications on the Victorian list but not the Central list: Browne to Collector
(Vic) 18 December 1933, David Swale (Acting Collector (Vic)) to Browne 15 September
1933, NAA: B13/0 1944/2540.
62
On importers, see White, Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives,
27 March 1935, 354. On the general public, see question, Senator Rae to Senator Pearce,
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 20 October 1933, 3745. In relation to the list,
Pearce said: 'It is not the practice to publish lists of publications containing seditious
literature inasmuch as it is considered that the publication of the names of such prohibited
literature would unnecessarily advertise the particular publications.' See also: question,
George Lawson (ALP, Brisbane) to T W White, Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates,
House of Representatives, 25 October 1933, 3900. In answer to a question from John Curtin
(ALP, Fremantle), White went further. It was not government policy to disclose even the
number of books banned in Australia: Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, 25 September 1936, 590.
63
See question on notice, John Rosevear (ALP, Dalley) to White, Commonwealth,
Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 21 November 1933, 4865. White's
justification was that a list of titles would not assist a person to assess whether the law was
being administered properly, and the distinction was justified on the grounds that
seditious literature was dealt with not by the Book Censorship Board but by the Customs
and Attorney-General's Departments.
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purpose of the prohibition would be lost by the fact that there would be a surreptitious
obtaining of such publications...64
Policy
The wording of the 1921 proclamation meant that, at law, a publication acquired the
status of prohibited import by virtue of its satisfying one or more of the prescribed
criteria. It was not a status acquired by virtue of the exercise of official discretion. In
practice, however, the process of determining whether publications were prohibited
involved the exercise of judgment, and therefore, a form of de facto discretion.
Moreover, whatever the legal effect of the prohibition, its operation was restricted to
communist literature. The prohibition was clearly capable of encompassing virulently
anti-semitic literature (as seditious), and it would have covered any fascist literature
that directly or indirectly advocated the violent overthrow of established governments.
Yet there is no evidence that the government even contemplated banning any Nazi or
Fascist literature. Consideration was given to whether the prohibition could
encompass the literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and some of the publications of
the Industrial Workers of the World appear to have been prohibited.65 But, in effect,
the prohibition was interpreted to extend to communist literature and only to
communist literature.
From 1929, there was an express ministerial discretion to permit the importation of
what would otherwise have constituted prohibited literature. The exercise of this
discretion was the subject of a succession of policies. In December 1929, James Fenton,
the then Minister for Trade and Customs in the Scullin government,66 stated that in the
exercise of his discretion, he would admit (a) all literature in a foreign language; (b) all
literature printed in Great Britain and allowed to circulate freely therein; and (c) all
literature printed in English-speaking dominions. Literature printed in English
elsewhere was to be submitted to him.67 Quantitatively, this represented a major
concession. Foreign language publications represented about a third of all publications
banned between 1921–29. British publications represented about half the prohibited
books. The effect of the policy was therefore to remove about 80% of all prohibited
titles from the ban. In effect, the only publications left for individual evaluation were
those published in the United States and the Soviet Union.68 Moreover, this liberal
policy was itself liberally administered. No additions were made to the banned list,
_____________________________________________________________________________________
64
Minutes of meeting between G Fitzpatrick, R Hall and TW White, NAA: A467
BUN21/SF7/1. A similar argument had been used by Fenton (in his role as Minister for
Trade and Customs in the Scullin government) in defence of his reluctance to reveal the
contents of the list of obscene publications. He had added that one danger of revealing
salacious titles was that they might be ordered by mail, in which case, their importation
might well not be detected: answer to Richard Crouch (ALP, Corangamite),
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 30 July 1930, 4926.
65
Cain, Origins, above n 1, 198.
66
He subsequently became Postmaster-General in the Lyons government and was
responsible for administering the ban on the postal transmission of communist
publications.
67
The policy is cited by White: Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, 27 March 1935, 346. It was communicated to the Secretary of the NSW
Australian Railways Union in a letter dated 28 January 30: Workers' Weekly, 14 February
1930.
68
These estimates are based on the incomplete lists to be found in NAA: B13/0 1944/2540.
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and all prohibitions under the Seditious Literature proclamation were withdrawn.69
Even the Lyons government was initially prepared to take a relatively liberal approach
to decisions in relation to imported literature. Shortly after the proclamation of 1932,
the Department prepared a memorandum, giving guidance in relation to how the
proclamation was to be administered. Importantly, it directed that as a general rule, no
objection was to be taken to (a) literature in a foreign language; and (b) literature
published in Great Britain or the dominions and allowed to circulate freely therein.70
This policy was largely abandoned once White became Minister for Trade and
Customs.71 In the years that followed, there were to be a considerable number of cases
where foreign literature and literature published and circulating in Britain and the
dominions was excluded.72
By 1935, however, a vigorous anti-censorship campaign was beginning to concern
the government.73 In late 1935, White indicated that he would be prepared to make
some concessions. He had made little use of his discretion to permit importation,
interpreting it as an escape clause whereby 'bona fide students of history, politics,
economics etc' might be permitted to import otherwise relevant literature which might
be relevant to their studies. Until 1935, such consent appears to have been given
sparingly.74 In September 1935, however, White announced that 'he would suggest to
_____________________________________________________________________________________
69
James Fenton (ALP, Maribyrnong, Minister for Trade and Customs) (answer to Richard
Crouch (ALP, Corangamite)), Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, 30 July 1930, 4926. File NAA: B13/0 1944/2540 includes details of 19
foreign publications (one, a volume including 7 'publications') which were to be allowed in.
70
The memorandum, T&C memo 32/A 2349 of 16 August 1932, is noted in Clerk in Charge
to WA Collector, 8 Dec 1932, NAA: A425/122 36/5307. The policy in favour of British
publications also seems to have been operative, at least in 1932. The only reference in the
file to publications prohibited in 1932 was to a number of US publications by one
W M Brown.
71
Coleman, above n 50, 83. I have not been able to trace any order rescinding the earlier
instruction and Coleman does not cite any. The 'foreign language' exception was still
accepted by Customs in February 1933. However, noting a file minute from Latham to the
effect that the policy was subject to the proviso that '[e]nquiry to be made re Jugo Slav
Communist newspapers particularly in WA', Hall, the Comptroller-General sought
Knowles' advice in relation to whether the Crveni Kalendar—a Chicago-published, Yugoslav
publication which had been imported into Western Australia—should be banned. Knowles
was initially of the view that it should not be, given the policy. After having obtained a
translation, and at the urging of Jones of the CIB, he agreed that it fell within the
prohibition, and it was banned: NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/28. Even in late 1933, the
policy seems to have had some operation. A memorandum from Maurice Synan (Collector,
Victoria) to Browne, 21 November 1933 (NAA: B13/0 1944/2540) points out that La Vie
Proletarienne fell within the prima facie 'foreign language' exemption. He resubmitted the
publication—a newspaper published in Belgium, which, despite its name, was in Italian—
for a report on whether it contained any objectionable matter. The report concluded that
the paper was communist, but that it made no reference to Australia, the Empire, nor to
anyone domiciled in Australia.
72
By 1937, at least 23 foreign language publications had been banned. Works excluded which
freely circulated in Britain included work by Fox, Hutt, Palme Dutt and Pollitt, along with
International Press Correspondence.
73
For accounts of the campaign, see Coleman, above n 50, 84–6; Martin, above n 56, 200–1;
Watson, above n 1, 67–70.
74
'Communistic Literature', NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/1; Coleman, above n 50, 84.
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the Ministry that a limited number of political books should be made available to
"genuine students" and "others who would not be affected injuriously by such
works"'.75
This was not enough to appease the anti-censorship campaigners, and in 1935–36,
the government explored the possibility of further change. The matter was considered
by Cabinet in February 1936. In a submission to Cabinet, White listed four options:
1. Extend the scope of the present [Censorship] Board to cover seditious literature
2. Modify the restrictions to:
(a) 'allow unrestricted importation of literature of the class in question, as was done
during the term of the Scullin government.'
(b) allow unrestricted importation of such literature as is printed in Britain and the
dominions and allowed to circulate there
3. 'Allow entry to bona fide students and educational institutions and study circles of
present prohibited literature. (This would be difficult to administer but may ease the
present pressure regarding political works)'.
4. Make no changes.
His preference was option 1 and, failing that, option 4.76 He advised Cabinet not to
worry too much about the campaign by the Book Censorship Abolition League:
The agitation for removal has received fairly strong support from certain quarters but
there is little doubt that it will gradually die down when it is known that the matter has
been considered by Cabinet and Cabinet's decision on the matter is announced.77
On 27 February, Cabinet decided that 'no change be made in the present system as
the Attorney-General's Department indicate that a lenient view of revolutionary matter
not affecting Australia or the British Empire is being taken.'78 Agitation did not die
down, and Attorney-General's argued that the Regulation should be amended so as to
narrow the range of publications falling within the statutory prohibition. In March
1936, Knowles had suggested that the Regulation be re-written so as to limit its
operation to a narrower body of literature:
The type of literature now issued and subsidized by the International is mainly directed
against Fascism and Hitlerism. Such literature can do little harm in the Commonwealth
but it falls within the terms of the prohibition and is prohibited. Paragraph (a) of Item 14
might be limited to literature advocating the overthrow of the government of the
Commonwealth or of any other part of the King's Dominions.
Paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) refer to anarchistic literature and paragraph (e) to IWW
[Industrial Workers of the World] literature. Both these political theories have been
superseded by Communism and no undue risk would, I think, be run if the prohibition
against anarchistic literature was lifted. IWWism may again be advocated and I suggest
that paragraph (e) be retained.
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75
Launceston Examiner, 17 September 1935. White reiterated this principle in the course of his
meeting with an anti-censorship deputation in October 1935, but stated that no application
from a bona fide student had yet been received. Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 10
September 1935, 13 NAA: A467/1 BUNDLE 21/SF7/3.
76
White, Submission to Cabinet Agenda 1575, par 25 NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3.
77
White, Submission to Cabinet Agenda 1575, par 24 NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3.
78
'Censorship of books—Political books', NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3.
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He suggested that the prohibition on the importation of seditious literature be
retained. Nothing came of Knowles' suggestion.79 Subsequently, on 1 May, he
recommended that if the Regulation was not changed, the Minister might nonetheless
consent to the importation of literature relating to civilised countries, and concluded
with the suggestion that
[i]f the practice of submitting alleged seditious literature to the Attorney-General's
Department for advice is to be continued, the Secretary suggests that books advocating
the overthrow of the Commonwealth or any State be prohibited, but those relating to
other countries be admitted by the Minister.80
He was to get his way. The new policy was foreshadowed on 8 May 1936 when the
civil libertarian MHR, Edward Holloway, asked the Prime Minister whether he would
receive a deputation from the Censorship of Books Prohibition League (sic), and if not,
whether he would make a statement to the House on the subject. Lyons, the Prime
Minister, stated that he hoped to make an early announcement on the subject, and that
he hoped this would make the deputation unnecessary.81 His answer was given two
weeks later, not as a statement to the House, but in the form of an answer to a question
on notice from Curtin, the leader of the Opposition. It was circulated on the last day of
the autumn session. Lyons stated that after consideration of the issues, the government
had decided not to repeal the Regulation. However he pointed out that the Minister
had the power to consent to the importation of otherwise prohibited publications.
[T]he Minister has, and will have, the complete approval of the Government in
interpreting the paragraphs in a spirit consonant with the established British principle of
the freedom of the press. But that principle cannot be construed to embrace the advocacy
of assassination, of the overthrow by violence of all forms of law, or of the wilful
destruction of property.82
On its face, this statement did not necessarily herald a major change in policy. The
Minister had shown no sign of wanting to interpret his power to consent in a manner
consonant with established British principles. There was nothing in his past record to
suggest that he was a closet civil libertarian restrained only by authoritarian cabinet
colleagues.83 The statement did not say that he would be interpreting the Regulation in
a more liberal manner, only that he would have the approval of Cabinet if he did. And
since the Minister seemed to have believed that communist propaganda as such could
be regarded as advocating violent revolution, any hopes raised by the penultimate
sentence might have been dashed by the final sentence.
But the statement could be read in another way. The reference to 'has and will
have', coupled with the lack of reference to 'has had' could be taken as tacit recognition
_____________________________________________________________________________________
79
Knowles, minute 20 March 1936; 'Censorship of books—political books', NAA: A467/1
BUN21/SF7/3.
80
'Censorship of books—Political books', NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3.
81
Answer to question, Edward Holloway (ALP, Melbourne Ports) to Lyons, Commonwealth,
Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 8 May 1936, 1430–1.
82
Answer to question, John Curtin (ALP, Fremantle) to Lyons, Commonwealth, Parliamentary
Debates, House of Representatives, 22 May 1936, 2243.
83
In answer to a question from John Curtin (ALP, Fremantle), in relation to the alleged
seizure by Customs of Mill's An Essay on Liberty, White began by stating that 'I cannot say
whether the book last indicated is an essay on liberty or licence but some people find it
difficult to distinguish between these two subjects': Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates,
House of Representatives, 23 September 1936, 397–8.
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that the Regulation had not been interpreted in a liberal spirit, and perhaps ought to
have been. The statement that a liberal interpretation would have Cabinet's approval
could be taken as implying by virtue of what it omitted that an illiberal interpretation
would not. The grudging recognition of the merits of a more liberal interpretation can
be understood both in terms of cabinet, party and electoral considerations. Humiliating
colleagues is always unwise, and governments which bow to pressure tend to be
blamed for taking so long to do so, rather than praised for having the courage to admit
they've been wrong. As a political statement, therefore, Lyons' answer was far more
encouraging. But much would depend on how it was interpreted, and as we shall see,
the Attorney-General's Department interpreted it as meaning the policy foreshadowed
in the 1 May minute would apply.
Implementing law and policy: final decisions
The impact of both law and policy depend on how they are interpreted and put into
operation. Prior to the 1936 policy change, both Customs and Attorney-General's
tended to err in the direction of prohibition. So long as a piece of literature contained
passages that could be construed as clearly advocating the violent overthrow of any
established government, it was classed as a prohibited import. Advocacy of revolution
per se sometimes seems to have been regarded as sufficient to bring a work within the
prohibition, but suggestions to this effect seem to reflect a mixture of loose use of
language, and contexts in which it was unnecessary to make express reference to the
requirement that the revolution be violent. Justifications given for the banning of books
frequently implied a superadded requirement that the revolution be violent.84
Moreover there is at least one case in which Knowles accepted that it had to be clear
that the book did so. In assessing Bradley's Trade Unionism in India, Knowles concluded
that it 'advocates revolution but the language used is not sufficiently definite as to
make it clear that revolution by violence is intended'. It was not therefore a prohibited
publication.85
A single passage in a lengthy book or pamphlet book could, however, suffice.
Single revolutionary passages in The Agent Provocateur in the Labour Movement, Breaking
Through and The Second Five Year Plan were considered by Knowles as enough to
warrant the banning of these works.86 The fact that a work was historical87 or
_____________________________________________________________________________________
84
See eg Boniwell to CG, NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/63 33/1267 (re The Only Way Out);
Knowles to CG, 17 October 1933, NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/64 (The Paris Commune. A
Story in Pictures).
85
Knowles to CG, 18 September 1933, NAA: A425/122 37/9231. This approach is arguably
slightly more liberal than Knowles' analysis of Dutt's World Politics 1918–1936 might
suggest. There Knowles considered that the book did not 'contain any direct incitement to
violence and civil war for the attainment of the world socialist organization, which the
author regards as inevitable. Besides its propagandist object, the book may be of interest to
students of political history and theory.' He nonetheless considered that: 'On a strict
interpretation of the prohibition contained in the Regulations, the book would appear to be
a prohibited import.' Knowles to CG, 4 November 1936. Given his conclusion that the book
should be allowed in under the 1936 guidelines, his assessment of whether the book could
fall within the Regulations was not of central importance.
86
Knowles to CG, 17 October 1933, NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/64. The passage is at 55,
NAA: A467/1 BUN20/SF7/64.
87
Brossois, Clerk Investigation Section to Collector, 27 July 1933; Collector to CG, 29 July
1933, rec prohibited; CG to Sec A-G's request for advice, 8 August 1933; seditious, Knowles
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fictional88 did not mean that it could not be seditious. Horace Power (a Victorian
Customs Official who was relatively liberal in censorship matters) classed Pollitt's
Dynamite in the Dock as seditious on the basis of some of the six reasons Pollitt gave for
joining the Communist Party, on the third last page of an otherwise unexceptionable
work.89
As one might expect, the position became more difficult where the publication in
question did not expressly call for revolution or for the violent overthrow of an
established government. Knowles seems to have considered that a book could fall foul
of the Regulation, notwithstanding that its message was implicit rather than explicit.90
_____________________________________________________________________________________
to CG, 18 September 1933 NAA: A425/122 37/9231 in relation to A Badayev, Bolsheviks in
the Tsarist Duma which advocated turning imperialist wars into civil wars.
88
Brossois, Clerk Investigation Section to Collector (NSW), 27 July 1933; Collector to CG, 29
July 1933, rec prohibited; CG to Sec A-G's, request for advice, 8 August 1933; seditious,
Knowles to CG, 18 September 1933; NAA: A425/122 37/9231 in relation to K Neukranz,
Barricades in Berlin. The prohibition was later lifted on the grounds that the book did not
advocate the overthrow of an Australian government. F Wolf, Floridsdorf, a play dealing
with a workers' insurrection in the Floridsdorf district of Vienna, was considered seditious,
but the Attorney-General's Department recommended that it nonetheless might be allowed
in, and under the more liberal policy, its importation was permitted: NAA: A425/122
36/5523.
89
Power to Inspector, 17 September 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5522.
90
See for instance his analysis of G Trease, The Call to Arms. This book dealt with a war
between two fictitious Latin American countries, one called Coravia:
True to communistic principles, the Coravians turn the capitalist war into a civil
war and make Coravia 'a new country and a better one'.
The book is undoubtedly communistic propaganda. The foundation of the plot may
have been the Chaco dispute in South America but the author hides the scene ... By
inference, the book would incite the revolutionaries of other countries to follow the
example of the Coravian revolutionaries, but there is no direct incitement to
overthrow by force or violence the established government of any civilised country.
I think that this is a case in which the Minister may exercise his discretion under the
Regulations and consent to the admission of the book.
Knowles to CG, 1 September 1936, NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/35 34/140/25;
A425/122 36/8843.
Implicit in the assumption that this was a case for the exercise of Ministerial discretion was
the assumption that this was a prohibited import: otherwise there would have been no
discretion to exercise. See likewise his analysis of International Literature:
In my opinion, the publication is a subtle form of communist propaganda and, as such,
on a strict interpretation of the Regulations, a prohibited import. It does not, however,
directly invite the overthrow by force or violence of the established government of the
Commonwealth or of any part of the King's Dominions. I think that this is a case in
which the Minister may exercise his powers under the Regulations and consent to its
entry into the Commonwealth: Knowles to CG, 1 June 36, NAA: A425/122 36/5303
(emphasis in original).
In assessing Information Bulletin of the Young Communist International No 1, he concluded that
the publication was a prohibited import:
It is evident, therefore, that the publication is an appeal to the youth, not only of
France to propagate Marxism throughout the world. 'Marxism is the revolutionary
theory that shows the way to a new world' (p 32). Soviet Russia is held up to the
youth of the world as an example of what can be done by organization, the
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Sometimes, books are recommended for prohibition where the message is only barely
implicit. For instance, Patrick J Tipping, a Principal Legal Assistant in the AttorneyGeneral's Department, considered that Customs was justified in having prohibited
Religion and the Five Year Plan:
This pamphlet does not advocate world revolution, but deals with the activities of the
Union of Militant Atheists. If it is an appeal to the people of Russia only, why is it printed
in Moscow in English? The inference is that Russia is endeavouring to stamp out religion
as an obstacle to Communism and that other countries should do likewise.
In the same report, he wrote, apropos Literature and the Peoples of the USSR:
[This] raises difficulties. From the general tone of the work it appears to be subtle
propaganda for consumption by the writers of the world. In the Soviet all writers are
happy, if other writers want to be happy, they should work for the revolution. I think its
importation should be prohibited.91
Such analyses would effectively mean that all Soviet propaganda would be
prohibited under the Regulation. If these two works are prohibited on grounds as
flimsy as this, it is hard to imagine that any work of propaganda could pass the test.
Indeed it is hard to imagine how any work published in the Soviet Union could qualify
for admission.
Perhaps these were lapses: they come at the end of a report which dealt with 60
suspect publications, a task calculated both to addle the brain and engender a
passionate commitment to the suppression of all forms of communist propaganda. It is
clear that most borderline publications were handled more carefully, especially when
considered by Knowles himself.92 Even in 1935, Knowles considered that Lenin's
Complete Works could be admitted '[o]n the grounds that these volumes are not
designed directly to incite to illegal acts with a revolutionary purpose'.93 By this test,
the two Soviet pamphlets would have qualified for admission.
Even prior to the liberalisation of 1936, the rigours of the prohibition were
tempered by the drawing of a distinction between theoretical and propagandist works,
between less and more accessible works, and between more and less expensive works.
From late 1935, the distinction between theoretical and propagandist works began to
be more generously applied. Even in the 1920s, the Marxist classics were generally
_____________________________________________________________________________________
inference being that the youth of other countries should follow the Russian
experiment. This necessitates the use of force or violence: Knowles to CG, 17
December 1936, NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/36 24/140/26.
91
'Communistic publications', NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/1, A467/1 BUN94/SF42/24. The
memorandum related to 60 works that had been banned by Customs during the period
when Customs had assumed sole responsibility for the censorship of seditious literature.
No action was taken on Tipping's report, which was confined to an assessment of whether
the works fell within the Regulation. Instead, after consultation between White and T C
Brennan, the Acting Attorney-General, it was decided that the question of whether books
on the list had been properly seized should not be re-opened, except where requests were
made in relation to particular books: Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, Abbott to Sec, A-G's, 11
June 1936 ,NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/24.
92
They almost invariably were. Many of the publications on the list were subsequently reconsidered and a decision made that they be allowed in. The remainder do not seem to
have been re-assessed, but they were not included on the Customs Department's 1937 list
of banned publications.
93
Cited, Brossois to NSW Collector, 3 October 1935, NAA: A425/122 1936/5534.
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allowed into the country. The Communist Manifesto was prohibited, but otherwise,
none of Marx's works appears on the Victorian Investigation Branch lists.94 Lenin's
Imperialism and State and Revolution were prohibited, but otherwise, there were no bans
on Lenin's works. After 1933, a number of Lenin's works were once more banned, as,
briefly, was the Communist Manifesto.95 However, from 1935, bans on Lenin's works
were gradually lifted. The basis for the distinction between theory and practice is
questionable (and decidedly un-communist), but its practical effect was to mitigate the
rigours of the censorship system.96 By 1940, by which time the authorities were
becoming increasingly less sympathetic towards communism, Lenin's Collected Works
could be dismissed as 'of interest only to students of political theories'. Even if they
technically fell within the embargo, this was not a case for applying the prohibition.97
The distinction between theoretical and other works overlaps with another
distinction: that between works that were relatively accessible to working class readers
and those which weren't. One dimension to this was incomprehensibility. Acting
Attorney-General Brennan appears to have considered this to be a relevant criterion. In
advising on Ralph Fox's Communism, he wrote:
In its early part this book merely generalises Karl Marx and it would be much above the
head of the average reader. But in the last two chapters it advocates blatantly all those
things which we have made it illegal for societies or individuals to advocate. I do not see
why Mr. Fox should have the assistance of the agencies of our social system—our post
offices and or railways—to assist him in the spread of his pernicious teaching.98
Evidently if the whole of the book had been above the heads of average readers, it
could have been allowed in. A second aspect of accessibility was cost. In 1935 White
acknowledged that there was discrimination against cheap paper editions, arguing in
defence that people could nonetheless have access to such works in public libraries.99
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94
The ban on the Communist Manifesto was particularly pointless: as early as 1926, a local
edition had been printed by the CPA: this was referred to by John Latham (Nat, Kooyong),
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 28 January 1926, 460.
95
Acting Collector of Customs (Vic) to Inspector, A-G's, 15 September 1933, NAA: B13/0
1944/2540. It is not clear when it was removed, but W Macmahon Ball reported that it had
been removed by 1935: 'The Australian Censorship' (1935) 26 Australian Quarterly 9, 13. The
same memo recorded that What is to be Done? had been banned.
96
Works admitted as theoretical included: Socialism and War and War and the Second
International (notified, Acting Collector of Customs (Vic) to Inspector, A-G's, 19 February
1936 NAA: B13/0 1944/2540); Lenin on Democracy Trade Unions and the Murderers of Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg; Budnov's Leninism (Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, NAA:
A467/1 BUN94/SF42/23 34/140/12); Lenin's Complete Works (3 October 1935, NAA:
A425/122 1936/5524); What is to be Done? (removed towards the end of 1935, see Roy
Rawson (radical bookshop proprietor) to Theo Lucas (rationalist and anti-censorship
campaigner), 21 July 1937, Fitzpatrick Papers, ANL MS 4965, 9906).
97
The volumes had been imported by the Myer Emporium for a client for private use.
Customs considered that volumes 1, 5, 7, 8 and 11 were possibly seditious: CG to A-G's, 13
February 1940. The assessment quoted is Knowles': Knowles to CG, 21 February 1940.
Lenin's Selected Works vol II had been prohibited, but several of his works had already been
de-listed.
98
T C Brennan to Abbott, 6 August 1935 NAA: A425/122 1935/5652.
99
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 352. It
was not clear, however, whether he had seditious literature in mind when he made this
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He also considered that it was a relevant distinction that the publication was a book
rather than a pamphlet or newspaper. The former might be regarded more
sympathetically than the latter.100 Thus, while pamphlets by Lenin were generally
prohibited in 1935, his Complete Works had been allowed in, pursuant to a
memorandum from the Attorney-General's Department. However, the status of his
Selected Works was not clarified until the following year.101 Also suggestive is the fact
that the files frequently reported the cost of particular publications. Had economic
accessibility been relevant to decision-making, a vital piece of information was
available for the decision-maker. However, the files do not appear to disclose examples
of cases where the cost of a particular edition was a matter expressly taken into
account in relation to prohibition decisions, and there are even cases where books
received less favourable treatment than pamphlets embodying particular chapters.102
Following Lyons' 1936 announcement, the Regulation was given a correspondingly
more liberal operation, albeit somewhat hesitantly at first. Customs advised AttorneyGeneral's that '[i]n view of your advice this Department does not intend to reopen the
question of the removal of ... publications from the prohibited list unless a specific
request is received in connection with any particular book.'103 However, AttorneyGeneral's applied a relatively liberal approach in relation to the advice given to the
Minister. Publications were evaluated according to a two-stage process. First, they
were examined in relation to whether they fell within the Regulation. If they did,
consideration was given to whether their importation should nonetheless be permitted.
In assessing whether publications fell within the Regulation, Attorney-General's
continued to give the criteria a broad operation.104 In determining whether
publications should nonetheless be allowed in, it generally favoured admission so long
as the publication did not 'directly advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the
established government of the Commonwealth or of any State of the
Commonwealth'.105 It recommended the lifting of bans on publications that were
allowed to circulate freely in the United Kingdom.106 These criteria were initially
treated as no more than guidelines. In June 1936, Knowles recommended the
prohibition of publications that did no more than attack the King and that urged
resistance to British rule in India. He also recommended the prohibition of several
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observation, but he probably did, given that public libraries were more likely to stock
seditious literature than they were to stock obscene literature.
100 Minutes of a meeting between Fitzpatrick, Hall and White ,NAA: A467 BUN21/SF7/1.
101 See Brossois to Collector (NSW), 3 October 1935, NAA: A425/122 1936/5524; on the
Selected Works, see NAA: A425/122 37/9231.
102 Indeed, because a generally unobjectionable book could fall foul of censorship on the
grounds of a particular passage, a book might be banned, while unobjectionable sections
could appear in pamphlet form. There is at least one example of this (but it is from the mid
1930s). Crisis on Clydesdale, a non-seditious chapter from the banned Conditions of the
Working Class in Britain, was released while the book remained banned: Abbott to
Collectors ,17 March 1936, NAA: A425/122 36/5522.
103 Reference to A-G's, 11 June 1936, NAA: A425/122 1936/5308.
104 Knowles' willingness to do so may have been influenced by the fact that this now mattered
only if the publication warranted prohibition under the more liberal policy.
105 See Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, NAA: A425/122 36/5525; 1 September 1936, NAA:
A467/1 BUN94/SF42/35 34/140/25; A425/122 36/8843; Boniwell to CG, August 1937,
NAA: A425/122 37/9231; Knowles to CG, NAA: A432/85 38/1022.
106 NAA: A425/122 1936/5308.
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revolutionary song-books that did not expressly refer to either Australia or Britain, but
which gloried in the hanging of members of former ruling classes from lamp-posts. By
1937, however, solicitude for Britain seems to have been qualified by a sense that if
Britain did not see fit to ban anti-British literature, there was no reason why Australia
should.
Gradually, periodicals and books were removed from the list. International
Literature, International Press Correspondence, Moscow Daily News and Labor Defender
were removed in 1936.107 An edition of the Communist International had been
recommended for the list by Knowles in June 1936, but by 1937, the journal had been
removed. New Masses had also been removed by 1937.108 Previously banned books to
be removed included British Imperialism in India (grudgingly), three works by Fox, Class
Struggle in Britain, Colonial Policy of British Imperialism and Communism,109 Hutt's
Condition of the Working Class in Britain,110 Martin's Annual,111 The Second Five Year Plan
(published by the British Communist Party)112 and Tretiakov's Roar China.113 The ban
was also removed on several works of political fiction. Floridsdorf, a technically
seditious play was considered worthy of importation under the 1936 guidelines. By
1937, it was being performed in Australia.114 The bans on Marschwitza's Storm over the
Ruhr and Page's The Gathering Storm were lifted in 1937.115
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107 NAA: A425/122 36/5303; NAA: A425/122 5307; NAA: A467 BUNDLE 93/SF42/44; NAA:
A425/122 36/2506. The removal of the ban on Inpreccor was belatedly announced in
Workers' Weekly on 23 July 1937. The report noted that '[s]ecretly and stealthily, in response
to popular demands, the Lyons government has scored out the name from the banned list,
though no announcement was made and no confirmation or denial could be obtained from
the government. Pettily and childishly the Lyons government has lifted the ban so as to be
able to reply to critics of its reactionary policy, but by secrecy it hoped to prevent the
victory to the democratic people from being effective.' Copies were available from the
Anvil Bookshop.
108 Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, NAA: A467/1 BUN89/SF42/12; Note to Menzies to White, 27
July 1937, NAA: A425/122 37/9231.
109 NAA: A425/122 1936/5308; The Attorney-General decided, against the advice of the
Acting Secretary, Attorney-General's, that the ban should be lifted: file note 10 June 1937,
A467 BUNDLE 89/SF43/18.
110 Recommended for admission: John Castieau (Second Assistant Secretary) for Acting Sec, AG's to CG, 10 June 1937. Approved, White, 11 June 1937, A425/122 1937/5573.
111 Knowles to CG, NAA: A432/85 38/1022. This book (by the author of British Imperialism in
India) was definitely not the kind of Annual that middle class adults would normally give
their grandchildren for Christmas. Its subversive contents included 'Rule Britannia. A most
scurvy tale', and an alphabet rhyme, including: 'E stands for Empire, built upon blood; F is
for Fascists a murderous brood'. White referred to this work in the 1935 censorship debate,
adding the information that the subversive literature was supplemented by pictures. 'F is
for Fascists' is accompanied by a drawing of 'a pile of skulls surmounted by the Union Jack,
with a British officer with drawn sword standing alongside': Commonwealth, Parliamentary
Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 347.
112 NAA: A425/122 37/13136.
113 NAA: A425/122 37/9231.
114 Workers' Weekly, 25 June 1937.
115 NAA: A425/122 36/5523; NAA: A425/122 37/9231.
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In 1936, there had nonetheless been several additions to the banned list.116
Thereafter there appear to have been none, and by 1939, political literature seems to
have been allowed, almost unhindered, into Australia. The last comprehensive list of
banned works appears to have been prepared in 1937. It included 88 publications, a
sharp reduction from the 200117 or so works which had once been on the list and in a
1943 memo to Bonney, the then Chief Publicity Censor, Abbott, the Acting
Comptroller-General explained that
very few of the publications on the ... list would, if reviewed on the basis of the [post–
1936 policy], be regarded as coming within the scope of the prohibition. They were dealt
with prior to the operation of the present policy and it was decided not to disturb the
decisions already reached in regard thereto.118
After 1937, only a handful of works were removed. The Left Song Book was allowed
in by February 1941. And while the list remained, nothing was added until Stalin's
Foundations of Leninism was added again during the war, only to be removed a couple
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116 McMahon Ball, The Herald, 16 June 1937 claimed no new works had been added after 1935.
However, as late as June 1936, Knowles had recommended the banning of For Soviet Britain
and Robson's How the Communist Party Works and Jackson's The Jubilee and How (Knowles to
CG, 2 June 1936 NAA: A425/122 36/5304), Manuilsky's Revolutionary Crisis is Maturing and
Revolutionary Crisis (Knowles to CG 3 June 36 NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/23 34/140/12);
Dimitrov's The Working Class against Fascism (which would have been allowed in had it
confined its attention to Fascist states, but which qualified for prohibition on the grounds
of advocacy of revolution in Britain and of a national liberation movement in India:
Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936 NAA: A467/1 BUN89/SF42/12), and several books of
revolutionary songs (Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, NAA: A425/122 36/5525). These appear
on a 1937 list of prohibited publications (T&C 37/6068 in NAA: SP109/3/1 316/37). On 17
December 1936, he had written to the Comptroller-General recommending that the
Information Bulletin of the Young Communist International No 1 was a prohibited publication.
Cabinet decided to reverse this decision (NAA: A425/122 36/10585). In addition, on 3 June
1936, he had recommended that the ban on Stalin et al, Socialism Victorious continue: (NAA:
A425/122 1936/5524).
117 It is a tribute to the government's success in keeping the banned list secret that estimates of
the number of banned books vary considerably. A 1936 minute for the Prime Minister
stated that there were approximately 200 publications on the prohibited list, mainly
booklets or pamphlets: 'Censorship of books', par 14 NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3S;
Murray-Smith, 'Censorship and Literary Studies' in Geoffrey Dutton and Max Harris (eds),
Australia's Censorship Crisis (1970) 77, 79, by contrast, estimates that the number of banned
books was 165. An estimate by the BCAL was that between January 1932 and December
1933, 66 political books were banned; between December 1933 and 26 October 1934, 79
books were banned, and a further 12 books were banned between 26 October 1934 and 9
January 1935: Francis Baker (ALP, Griffith), Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House
of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 354, quoting Miss Kemp of the BCAL who had been
given the figures by Customs. Between 16 January and 19 February 1936, another 32 works
were banned (and 4 were removed from the banned list). In the following period, another
15 publications were added (and 2 removed): Wilson, Acting Collector of Customs, Victoria
to Inspector, CIB, Melbourne, 19 February 1936: NAA: B13/0 1944/12540. These figures
yield an aggregate close to 200.
118 Abbott to Edmund Bonney (Chief Publicity Censor), 19 January 1943, NAA: SP109/3/1
316/37. The only books left on the list were books whose banning had been expressly
approved by the Attorney-General's Department, and whose banning had not been
subsequently reviewed.
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of years later.119 Customs played little role in the war-time censorship of imported
literature, the censorship of imported literature being largely a matter for Postal and
Telegraph Censorship.120 Even during the years of the Cold War, the government
appears to have made no use of its customs powers. In 1950, Customs raised with
Attorney-General's the question of whether World Trade Union Movement and In Defence
of Peace were seditious.121 In each case, Attorney-General's ruled that they were not.
Thereafter, there appear to have been no further such inquiries.
Applying law and policy: the gate-keepers
The importance of lower level decision-makers in the banning process is two-fold.
First, books found their way to the banned list only because some lower level official
decided that the book was of a character such that it was a possible candidate for the
prohibited list. Second, in practice, decisions by lower level administrators were almost
invariably upheld by more senior administrators. Officials were rarely found to have
erred by labelling literature as prohibited when it should have been treated as
harmless.
There is some evidence that some officials were more liberal than others. In
Victoria, Power, the de facto decision-maker, appears to have taken a relatively
tolerant attitude towards works in which advocacy of revolution was at most implicit.
Whereas Power treated Radek's The Architect of Socialist Society as doing nothing worse
than setting out Lenin's place in the story of Bolshevik achievements, Charles Brossois,
a clerk in the Investigating Section in New South Wales, recommended that the book
be treated as a prohibited import.122 The two administrators also differed in their
assessment of Stalin's Report of the Work of the Central Committee of the CPSU and in
relation to The League of Militant Atheists and its Work.123 Stalin's Leninism was admitted
to Melbourne, but not to Fremantle.124 Pyanitsky's The Communist Parties in the Fight for
the Masses was described as a prohibited import by Clifton Carne, Clerk in Charge,
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119 Collector of Customs (Vic) to Director, CIB, 21 February 1938, 20 February 1941, 19
February 1942, 22 May 1944, NAA: B13/0 1944/2540.
120 In a 1942 memorandum, Knowles reiterated the 1936 policy, argued that 'seditious
purpose' was to be given a narrow construction, and pointed out that the Regulation did
not cover 'subversive' as opposed to 'seditious' literature. Seditious literature would be
caught if it came in as postal matter, but not if it came in as freight. He suggested that the
Regulation be amended: Knowles to Sec Department of Defence Co-ordination, 15
September 1942. The Department of the Army suggested an amendment to the Regulation,
based on a Canadian precedent, but nothing came of this: NAA: A816/1 1/301/208. The
problem was largely theoretical. The exigencies of war severely limited the foreign goods
that could find their way to Australia. Moreover, foreign exchange controls meant that
applications had to be made to import any publications from non-sterling bloc countries:
see Fitzpatrick to Assist Sec, Australian-Soviet Friendship League, 15 February 1942,
Fitzpatrick Papers, ANL MS 4965, 10145.
121 NAA: A432/82 1950/428; A432/82 1950/1321.
122 Power to Inspector, 7 August 1934, NAA: A425/122 36/5523, Cf Brossois to Collector, 15
August 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5523.
123 Power to Inspector, 7 August 1934 NAA: A425/122 36/5523, cf Brossois to Collector, NSW
15 August 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5523.
124 NAA: A467/1 BUN89/SF42/1. They were removed from the prohibited list towards the
end of 1935: Roy Rawson to Theo Lucas, Fitzpatrick Papers, ANL MS 4965, 9906.
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Western Australia, but was allowed into Victoria on Power's recommendation.125
Stalin, Molotov and Litvinov's Our Foreign Policy was reported as prohibited by Carne
to the Western Australian Collector, but was considered unobjectionable in Victoria,
and later by Acting Attorney-General Brennan.126 International Literature also evoked a
variety of responses. In part, this seems to have been a result of nothing more sinister
than a steady softening of the line taken by the journal, but even particular editions
evoked different responses. Copies regarded in Sydney as seditious and by Terence
Simonds, Chief Clerk, Central Administration, as not particularly objectionable, were
being allowed in at Melbourne. In 1935, Power was favouring admission, while
Knowles argued that the journal fell within the prohibition. Their assessments
highlight the problem of operationalising the statutory test. Power seems to have been
concerned with the likely effect of the journal:
I have read this copy [Jan 35] and the three preceding numbers carefully and am of the
opinion that the policy of the directorate of the magazine has changed considerably in the
past twelve months. Earlier copies contained articles and cartoons that were rabidly
revolutionary but recent issues have been free from these objectionable features.
Exception might, perhaps, be taken to some of the cartoons but these have little or no
application to conditions in Australia and their significance is obscured if not lost to local
readers.127
Knowles on the other hand seems to have been more concerned with the
publishers' intentions, and seems to have been more inclined to act on the basis that
one could assume that propaganda would achieve the publisher's intentions:
[I]t is stated that 'International Literature' should prove a great stimulus in the growth of
revolutionary art and literature. It is also described as an organ of revolutionary militant
thought, and an analysis of the cultural life of the land of the proletarian dictatorship.
From these statements, it would appear that the object of the periodical is to stimulate the
growth of revolutionary militant thought in the direction of establishing a proletarian
dictatorship.128
T C Brennan, Acting Attorney-General (and acerbic anti-Communist), seems to
have preferred Power's analysis:
[A]lthough I think it is intended to serve as communistic propaganda, I cannot point to
anything therein which would bring it within the terms of the Regulations. It appears,
however, to be published periodically, and it may be that other numbers offend against
the Regulations.129
By June 1936, R B Curd, the Queensland Collector, had concluded that the journal
had ceased to be seditious, but while Knowles was prepared to recommend that it be
admitted under the Minister's discretion, he was not prepared to resile from his view
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125 Carne to Collector (WA), 28 November 1934, NAA: A467/1 BUN 89/SF42/1; cf Power to
Inspector, 7 August 1934, NAA: A425/122 36/5523. If We are Fighting for a Communist
Germany is the same publication as We are Fighting for a Soviet Germany, there was also
disagreement in relation to this publication.
126 Carne to WA Collector, 28 November 1924, NAA: A467/1 BUN89/SF42/1; Power to
Inspector, 7 August 1934, NAA: A425/122 36/5523; T C Brennan to White 16 July 35 NAA:
A425/122 1936/5524.
127 Power to Senior Inspector ,28 June 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5303.
128 Knowles to CG, 2 August 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5303.
129 T C Brennan to Minister for Trade and Customs ,16 July 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5303.
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that the publication was nonetheless seditious.130 Somewhat similar arguments
surrounded the Moscow News. Harold Jones, Director of the Commonwealth
Investigation Branch, had suggested—possibly with tongue in cheek—that the paper
should be allowed in so that Australian workers could read about the appalling work
practices in force in the Soviet Union.131 But despite this eminently sensible argument,
the paper had been placed on the prohibited list by 1934. In 1935, the Western
Australian Collector detained a copy, and the importer protested to the Minister. In a
memorandum for the Comptroller-General, Simonds, Chief Clerk advised that the
consignment should be released.
It is only to be expected that a daily newspaper which is printed in Russia will contain a
good deal of matter which would serve as communist propaganda. The copy of the
'Moscow Daily News' which is herewith is no doubt, strictly speaking, a prohibited
import within the meaning of the regulation, but at the same time there is nothing
seriously objectionable about it.
I understand that it is not the general practice to scrutinize too closely daily
newspapers printed in foreign countries and this is probably the wisest policy to follow.
Strictly speaking the Department has no right to prohibit the importation of a newspaper
because one particular edition is found to contravene the Regulations and each edition
should be dealt with on its merits.
He suggested that the Attorney-General advise on Moscow Daily News.132 On 18
June 35, Collectors were advised that no objection need be taken to the importation of
Moscow News. On 16 June, however, Attorney-General's advised that:
In my opinion, the publication advocates world revolution along the lines of the Russian
revolution in 1917, and comes within the class of literature prohibited by Item 14 of the
Second Schedule of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations. 133
The recommendation that delivery not be allowed was approved by the Minister on
11 August 1935 and Collectors were advised accordingly.134 Stalin et al's Socialism
Victorious gave rise to similar divisions of opinion. Western Australia excluded it.
Victoria allowed it in. New South Wales seems to have prohibited it, although the
Sydney Municipal Library managed to get hold of a copy. The book was referred to
Knowles who advised that 'I have perused the publication and, in my opinion, it
advocates revolution by violence, and, therefore, comes within the terms of item 14.'
He added that he had retained the publication for the purposes of litigation involving
the Friends of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party and would return it later.135
Following representations from the Workers' Educational Association, Simonds sought
to have the matter reopened,136 and following the Prime Minister's announcement of a
relaxed censorship policy, Knowles reported again—unfavourably.
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130 R B Curd (Collector (Queensland)) to CG, 7 April 1936, Knowles to CG, 1 June 36 NAA:
A425/122 36/5303.
131 Jones to Latham, 19 Dec 1933, NAA: A432/86 33/1136.
132 Simonds to CG, 28 May 1935, NAA: A467 BUNDLE92/SF42/21 34/140/10.
133 Boniwell (Assist Sec) to CG, 16 June 1935, NAA: A467 BUNDLE92/SF42/21 34/140/10.
134 Abbott (CG) to Collectors, 14 August 1935, NAA: A467 BUNDLE92/SF42/21 34/140/10; in
1936, however, the matter was re-considered, and importation permitted: NAA: A467
BUNDLE 93/SF42/44.
135 Knowles to CG, 11 July 1935, NAA: A425/122 1936/5524. For details of the litigation, see
Douglas, above n 6.
136 Simonds to CG, 30 July 1935, NAA: A425/122 1936/5524.
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The Prime Minister stated that the regulation would be interpreted 'in a spirit consonant
with the established principle of the freedom of the press'. 'Freedom of the press' does not
however imply 'a despotic sovereignty to do every sort of wrong without the slightest
accountability to private or public justice'. Any man, however, may fearlessly advance
any new doctrines provided he does so with proper respect to the religion and
government of the country. The liberty of the press depends on a negative foundation—
there are no restraints on publication and no freedom from censure for publishing illegal
matter.
He advised that the work was unobjectionable except for a section by Manuilsky:
The Revolutionary Crisis is Maturing. This was an instigation to force and violence and
could not be separated from the rest of the book. The book was therefore a prohibited
import.137
These differences should be kept in perspective. There were publications that
Power regarded as seditious,138 and there were publications that Brossois and Knowles
regarded as unproblematic.139 But the differences of opinion highlight the problems
associated with interpreting the legislation, and also act as a corrective to
interpretations which see the history of censorship as a struggle between benighted
Customs officials and an enlightened Attorney-General's Department.
Enforcement practices also varied according to who was importing the work in
question. Particular attention was paid to literature sent to particular addressees (and
the Investigation Branch paid particular attention to people to whom suspect literature
was sent). 140 When Communists returned from overseas, their luggage was normally
searched and carefully examined. Even relatively innocuous works were sometimes
seized. When William McKissock returned to Australia in 1934, after a visit to the
Soviet Union, officials seized all the books in his possession. These included a number
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137 Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936 ,NAA: A425/122 1936/5524.
138 For Soviet Britain, Power to Inspector 19 September 1935 NAA: A425/122 36/5304; Pollitt's
Harry Pollitt Speaks Power to Inspector, 17 September 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5522;
Andrews' The Labor Party and the Menace of War and Robson's How the Communist Party
Works (Power to Inspector, 19 September 1935, NAA: A425/122 36/5304) Soviet Power—The
Only Way Power to Inspector, 7 August 1934, NAA: A425/122 36/5523.
139 This scarcely needs documentation. Even before the 1936 liberalisation, Brossois and
Knowles both considered that Lenin's Complete Works did not fall within the Regulation.
See Brossois to NSW Collector ,19 May 1936, NAA: A425/122 1936/5524.
140 The Workers' Educational Association, a body with links to the Communist Party,
complained that its consignments were delayed while consignments addressed to
'respectable' bookshops were not. This had economic implications: its own bookshop's
capacity to compete was adversely affected since other bookshops were able to meet the
demand for books on its reading lists before its own bookshop could do so. In a
memorandum in relation to the overlap between Customs and Postmaster-General's
censorship, William Stanton noted that all printed matter in packages addressed to
particular addresses (those of Radical bookshops) was inspected by the Customs
authorities. Stanton, Inspector, Postal Services Branch to Dep Dir P&T, 8 March 1934, NAA:
A432/86 34/140/PT5.
The use of addresses as a basis for enforcing the prohibitions had always been part of the
government's enforcement strategy. Once the proclamation of February 1921 had been
made, the Commonwealth Investigation Branch immediately began preparing a list of
suspect addressees: Cain, Origins, above n 1, 196–9.
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of school textbooks that were found to be completely harmless.141 Several volumes of
revolutionary songs were taken from the luggage of J Harris when he returned to
Adelaide in 1935.142
Sanctions
The typical sanction involved the seizure of suspect literature, usually followed by its
confiscation or destruction. Sometimes confiscated publications would find their way
to departmental bookshelves. Sometimes they were destroyed. One was retained by
Attorney-General's for use in some forthcoming litigation. A 1934 report in the
Melbourne Herald suggested that prohibited books were being burned by Customs,
without their importers being given a chance to return the works to the publishers but
the report gives only limited particulars, and is misinformed in at least one respect.143
In fact the position seems to have been more complex. On 6 September 1934, the
Comptroller-General announced a toughening of policy so that 'when it is decided that
a book is a prohibited import, it is inconsistent with the Act to allow delivery, even to
return to senders, unless the circumstances are very exceptional'.144 Shortly afterwards,
a Melbourne bookseller asked that it be allowed to return copies of Fox's Colonial Policy
of British Imperialism which it had imported, not realising that the book was a
prohibited import. The Victorian Collector of Customs concluded that the new policy
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141 For details, see NAA: A425/122 26/5523. While seizing school textbooks seems both stupid
and gratuitously petty, it was arguably justifiable given the law as it then stood, and given
that one would expect such textbooks to include an even greater element of propaganda
than schoolbooks in general. Seizing a textbook on a subject as innocuous as Botany was
probably going too far, but, acting with the wisdom of hindsight, we should not forget
Zhdanov and Lysenko. (In any case, the school books were returned.)
142 Several of these volumes included particularly bloodthirsty exhortations and thoroughly
earned their designation as seditious, but there were exceptions. Knowles could not resist
the observation, in relation to one example of the happy peasant genre of 1930s Soviet
Culture, that:
One cannot imagine local revolutionaries singing –
'Carefully
Pull out the weeds,
Study the soil
And its needs
Guided by science
Put your reliance
In the best choosing of seeds!'
Knowles to CG, 3 June 1936, NAA: A425/122 36/5525. The song is to be found in
Proletarian Songs of the Soviet Union. People returning from visits to the Soviet Union
regularly had books, slides and films seized: Macintyre, above n 1, 368.
143 The Herald (Melbourne), 9 October 1934, 22. The report states that 'under a new regulation'
booksellers 'are not allowed to return books to the publisher after the banning'. The 'new
regulation' (presumably the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations of 1934) made no
difference to the rights of booksellers to return books. The article cites no cases of importers
not being allowed to return books. Rather, it cites a case where a private individual (not a
bookseller) had imported 6 copies of a book which was banned for the first time
subsequent to its arrival. These had been confiscated and no compensation given. The
report does not indicate whether the person had sought the right to return the work to the
publisher or other consignor.
144 Quoted, Simonds to CG, 15 October 1934 ,NAA: A425/122 35/707.
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meant that the book could not be returned, but Abbott, the Comptroller-General
advised that the new policy was intended to apply only to indecent publications.145
That this was indeed the policy was reiterated by the Minister, Colonel TH White,
during the 1935 censorship debate.146 Maurice Blackburn147 took issue with this
assertion, arguing that under the Act, prohibited publications were forfeited to the
Crown. White then qualified his statement, explaining that where prohibited books
were brought in surreptitiously they would be forfeited, just as other smuggled goods
were.
Where the importer may not have been aware that the book was a prohibited
publication, however, the importer would be given a chance to return the book.148 This
had been and continued to be the case. Copies of Fox's Communism were returned to
the publisher at the request of Rawson's bookshop, after a decision that it was a
prohibited import.149 Sometimes, the process could prove quite complicated. After the
Workers' Educational Association had unsuccessfully urged that it be allowed to
import Socialism Victorious it asked that it at least be allowed to send the consignment
back to source. Customs agreed, provided that a representative attended at its offices,
armed with sufficient string and paper to pack the books. Under supervision, he would
then be allowed to take them to the Post Office to post them back. These terms were
acceptable and the operation appears to have proceeded smoothly.150
The file answers one of the obvious questions to emerge from White's statement:
what was to stop an importer from taking possession of the book and forgetting to
send it back? However, while bookshops were aware that they could ask that
prohibited publications could be returned, it is unlikely that people who sought to
import publications for their own use were aware of this option. Customs certainly
does not seem to have told them, and those who corresponded with Customs (such as
Stan Moran151 and William McKissock) did not canvass this as an option.
Once a prohibited import had entered Australia, it was normally safe from seizure,
simply because those who might be inclined to seize it would not be aware either of its
existence or whereabouts. In 1936, however, Customs learned that the Sydney
Municipal Library possessed a copy of Socialism Victorious, and officials descended on
the library and seized the offending book. The City Librarian protested, arguing that
the book was useful for students, and that since the importation of Lenin's works was
permitted, students should be allowed access to this particular work too. Inquiries
revealed that Lenin's collected works had indeed been permitted, but since Socialism
Victorious had been prohibited on the basis of firm advice from Knowles, Customs was
disinclined to accept that the library should be entitled to make out a special case on
the basis of the book's possible interest to disinterested students. It was, however,
willing to return the seized copy. The book had been imported at a time when its legal
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145 Minute, 16 October 1934 , NAA: A425/122 35/707.
146 Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 351.
147 ALP MHR for Bourke, and committed civil libertarian.
148 Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 351–2.
149 NAA: A425/122 1935/5652.
150 See note to letter of 29 April 1936 NAA: A425/122 1936/5524.
151 Moran, an activist in the Unemployed Workers' Movement, and later a union organiser,
was one of the CPA's most effective speakers. Frequently arrested, he was an accomplished
courtroom performer.
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status was unclear, and since there were probably a number of other copies circulating
in Australia, it would be unfair to confiscate it.152 This, however, is the only case I have
been able to find of an illegal publication being seized after having been allowed into
Australia.
In cases where seized works were subsequently found to be innocuous, they were
sometimes returned expeditiously. For example, the Soviet school textbooks taken
from McKissock on his arrival in Australia were quickly returned. Sometimes,
however, importers recovered the publications in question only after a long delay.
Within the Department of Trade and Customs, matters normally moved with
reasonable speed, but once matters were referred to the Attorney-General's
Department, months and sometimes years could elapse without anything happening.
White's 1936 advice to Cabinet acknowledged this problem:
Importers desire prompt decisions regarding books detained and the officers of the
Attorney-General's Department are so heavily burdened with other duties, particularly
during Parliamentary Sessions, that it would be unreasonable to expect work of this
nature [assessing imported literature] to get precedence over parliamentary work.153
And it didn't. Where (as was often the case) reminder letters were sent at regular
intervals, these were often left unanswered. Hubert Lazzarini (ALP, Werriwa) raised in
Parliament the case of one Louden who sought to import a 3 volume Life of Lenin.
Volumes I and III duly arrived, but volume II was detained. Customs referred him to
the Postmaster-General's Department, but eventually it turned out that the volume was
in Customs' custody and had been for 7 months. The saga had a happy ending: on the
advice of Attorney-General's the volume was released.154 It took 6 months to process
Crisis on Clydesdale.155 It took more than a year for a decision to be made that
Beauchamp's British Imperialism in India should be removed from the banned list,
following a request by the consignee.156 Wolf's Floridsdorf had been seized on 31 July
1935, but a final decision in relation to it does not appear to have been made until
1937.157 Books were seized from Stan Moran in May 1935, but it was not until July the
following year that a letter was written informing him of their fate, and it was not until
November 20 that he received it.158
In one respect, however, the administration of political censorship was relatively
liberal. I have been unable to find any examples of people being prosecuted for
importing prohibited literature and it is hard to imagine any such prosecution
escaping the attention of the anti-censorship lobbyists. Indeed, I have been unable to
find a case where prosecution was even contemplated. This apparent liberalism
probably reflects expedience rather than principle. The Commonwealth had good
reasons for avoiding prosecutions. Proof of the requisite intent would be difficult, since
the importer would normally not be in a position to know the contents of the relevant
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152 NAA: A425/122 1936/5524.
153 Agenda No 1575, par 22 NAA: A467/1 BUN21/SF7/3.
154 Question Hurbert Lazzarini (ALP, Werriwa) to White, Commonwealth, Parliamentary
Debates, House of Representatives 2 October 1935, 460–1.
155 NAA: A425/122 36/5522.
156 The saga is to be found in NAA: A425/122 1936/5308.
157 NAA: A425/122 37/9231. In this case, delay could have been to the importer's advantage,
given the policy change of 22 May 1936. (There is, however, nothing to suggest that the
book was ever returned.)
158 Workers' Weekly, 24 November 1936.
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publication at the time of importation. (In this respect, the secrecy surrounding the list
of prohibited works could work to the advantage of the importer.) Moreover,
prosecution would place the Commonwealth in the position of having to defend its
assessment of the works in question, and of having to demonstrate beyond reasonable
doubt that the work in question was seditious. Given the relaxed standards that
characterised many of the Commonwealth's decisions, the Commonwealth would
sometimes have been hard-pressed to satisfy this burden of proof. As is so often the
case in the area of political repression, the price paid for the ability to impose low level
sanctions is abstention from attempts to mobilise the legal system in an endeavour to
ensure the imposition of more severe ones.
Legality
In deciding whether to ban publications, the government appears generally to have
acted within the law. The test under the proclamation and the regulation was whether,
within a publication, a proscribed objective was advocated, rather than the more liberal
test of whether the publication could be said to advocate a proscribed goal. That said,
there appear to have been some publications that were banned but did not fall within a
generously construed version of the regulation. Some works were banned,
notwithstanding that the advocacy was, at best, implicit, and capable of being inferred
only on the basis of highly problematic assumptions. It was also clear that there were
cases where the government was willing to ban publications without even inquiring
into whether they fell foul of the prohibition. In the 1920s, the prohibited list included
blanket bans on all propaganda and literature published by a number of communist
bodies.159 Early in the 1930s, the government had become aware of the problems posed
by such bans. While one issue of a given periodical might be seditious, it would not
necessarily follow that others would be.
One response to this problem would be to subject each edition of a periodical to
supervision so that a decision could be made as to whether it constituted a prohibited
import. The difficulty with this procedure lay in the fact that this would be a resourceconsuming exercise, especially in relation to foreign language periodicals. A second
response would be to amend the legislation so as to enable particular periodicals to be
declared to be illegal imports. A third solution was simply to add suspect periodicals
to the list of banned publications and to exclude them until an occasion arose for
allowing a particular edition into Australia. This was the solution that the government
adopted. It simplified administration, but it did so at the price of legality. It meant that
publications were being seized notwithstanding that they were not illegal imports, and
without any inquiry being made into this question. It was, however, a low risk strategy
and one that the government felt free to pursue until 1936.160
Sanctions were sometimes administered in an arguably extra-legal manner. Some
seizures of literature involved blanket seizures and included works that could not
reasonably be suspected of being prohibited. Moreover even where books were found
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159 All propaganda published by the Federation of Communist Anarchists (!) of Germany; all
literature published by the Red International of Labor Unions, all Communist propaganda
of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In addition, about thirty periodicals were banned:
see list: NAA: B13/0 1944/2540.
160 See the files on International Literature (NAA: A425/122 36/5303) and International Press
Correspondence (NAA: A425/122 36/5307).
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not to be prohibited imports, they were not necessarily restored or returned to their
consignees. In May 1936, Stan Moran wrote to the Minister asking for a review of the
decision to seize British Imperialism in India, his request being based on the more liberal
policy that Lyons had recently foreshadowed. His request was considered, but he
never received his book. The file simply includes a note dated 15 April 1937 to the
effect that 'the copy seized from Mr Moran was taken in January 1936. In view of the
lapse of time it does not seem desirable to open the matter unless it is again raised.' The
copy subsequently went into the Department's bookroom.161 The Department
displayed a similarly casual attitude to property rights in its 1935–36 dealings with
McKissock. On 9 December 1935, the Department notified McKissock that on 23
November it had seized a consignment of publications. Four days later, McKissock,
who had had previous dealings with the Department, wrote asking which publications
were considered seditious; by whom were they condemned; and whether it was
possible to know the exact paragraphs which were classed as being seditious. 'I also
wish to "enter an action" against the Collector for the recovery of my goods, if this
letter is not sufficient would you advise of procedure'.162 Abbott, the ComptrollerGeneral, sought advice from the Attorney-General's Department, observing that:
In the event of the particular issues being considered to be prohibited it is assumed that
it would be undesirable to comply with the importer's request for an indication of the
particular matter in the publications which is regarded as objectionable.163
The Department did, however, give McKissock's request serious consideration and,
while it decided that the ban on Stalin's The October Revolution should stand, it also
decided to recommend to the Minister that the Moscow Daily News should at last be
removed from the list. Simonds advised therefore that the Moscow Daily News be
released, that no particulars be provided, and that 'if Mr McKissock intends to take
action against the Collector to recover his goods and does not know how to proceed in
the matter it is suggested that he consult a solicitor on the matter.'164 The Minister
approved the recommendation. On 24 February 1936, McKissock wrote to the Minister,
seeking particulars in relation to The October Revolution and asking that his 12 copies of
Moscow Daily News be returned, observing that 'I would also like to point out that
owing to the fact that I am in poor circumstances your department must realise the
same as I that it is impossible to "take action" against your department.' On 27
February 1936, White asked that publications not on the prohibited list be returned, but
it was too late. On 26 February 36, Arthur Wilson (Acting Collector, Victoria) reported
that McKissock should be advised that '[a]s no claim in writing was made by you
within the prescribed time in regard to the importation in question, the publications
together with copies seized from other addresses were duly destroyed on 16th January
1936.'165 A fortnight later, the Comptroller-General advised Mr McKissock
accordingly. The demand for particulars was refused:
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161 NAA: A425/122 1936/5308. (If Moran had been advised prior to 15 December 1936 that if
he wanted the book, he should enter an action to recover it, Customs would have been
entitled to keep the book, but there is no evidence on the file that he ever was so advised.)
162 McKissock to Collector (Vic), 13 December 1935, NAA: A467 BUNDLE 93/SF42/44.
163 Abbott to Sec, A-G's, 8 January 1936, NAA: A467 BUNDLE 93/SF42/44.
164 Simonds to CG, 31 January 1936, NAA: A467 BUNDLE 93/SF42/44.
165 The file reports that 5 copies of Moscow Daily News had been returned to the Victorian
Collector on 31 January 1936. These presumably were not McKissock's.
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My Minister is not prepared to indicate particular paragraphs in the book which are
regarded as objectionable. He desires me to say, however, that action to include the
book in the prohibited list was taken following on advice relating to it received from
the Attorney-General's Department.
There was no expression of regret at the destruction of the newspapers.166 Worse, it
seems clear that McKissock had claimed the publications. He had not done so
explicitly, but his statement that he wished to enter an action against the Collector
implied such a claim, as indeed did the fact that he had written to ask for his books.
His correspondence appears to have been sufficiently unambiguous to constitute
notice of a claim (the Act did not require that notice take a particular form), and had
been addressed to the correct Collector. If so, Customs was not empowered to destroy
the publications until 4 months after the giving of notice that McKissock was required
to enter an action for their recovery. Even if McKissock had been given such notice
(which would be inconsistent with the Collector's assertion that McKissock had not
made a claim), the destruction of the publications clearly took place before 4 months
had elapsed.
IMPLICATIONS
Up to a point, the rises and falls of peace-time political censorship can be understood
in terms of the politics of anti-communism. Censorship flourished under the BrucePage government even more than under the post-World War I Hughes government. It
was abandoned by the Scullin government. It was revived under Lyons. It can be
understood in terms of the loathing which communism aroused among conservatives
and in terms of the instrumental and symbolic value of anti-communist measures. Its
abandonment under Labor is partly to be explained in terms of Labor's awareness of
the possibility that anti-communism could be used to legitimate action against
socialists as well as action against communists. But this is only part of the story. For
while the Lyons government reintroduced political censorship, it did so gradually, and
within five years, it had effectively abandoned it.167
The abandonment of political censorship can be explained partly in terms of the
changing meaning of communism. By the late 1930s, the threat posed by communism
had declined. The economy had at last recovered from the depression, and one lesson
that could be drawn from the depression was that even in the face of economic
catastrophe, the capitalist social order could survive. Moreover communism itself was
changing. The Party's shift from the hyper-sectarianism of the depression years to the
greater openness of the 'United Front'168 period was reflected in its down-playing of
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166 NAA: A467 BUNDLE 93/SF42/44.
167 However, the effective abandonment of the censorship of political publications coexisted
with an intermittent willingness to censor radio broadcasts. The targets of these attempts
went well beyond the CPA, the best known examples being the temporary closure of 2KY
(the NSW Labor Council owned station) in December 1938, and insistence that Judge Foster
amend a speech (on censorship) which he proposed to deliver over the ABC. In 1938,
commercial stations were required to submit all scripts of proposed broadcasts about
international relations to the Postmaster-General's Department. See Rupert Lockwood, War
on the Waterfront (1987) 172–6; Fitzpatrick Papers, ANL MS 4965, 17,904.
168 The 'United Front' period was characterised by a shift in party strategy. In the early 1930s,
the CPA, like the Comintern, had sought to distance itself from 'reformist' parties and
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revolutionary rhetoric. The Party's acceptance that revolution would require mass
consent involved the abandonment of the violent rhetoric that had characterised
communist speeches and writing in the early 1930s. One effect of this was that
communist literature was less readily classified as seditious, but another was a greater
willingness on the part of the government to tolerate communist literature that
arguably was seditious. Reciprocal tolerance is not surprising, and one encounters it
not only in the area of censorship, but in the reaction of state and local governments to
communist meetings and protests.169 But this analysis goes only some of the way
towards an explanation of the decline of political censorship. For anti-communism was
not dead, and in some ways the golden age of anti-communism was still to come. Yet
while the Cold War years were characterised by a variety of forms of political
repression, customs censorship was not among them.
One possible explanation for this trend lies in the different nature of the post-war
'threat'. In pre-war anti-communism, one finds hints of fears of the possible appeals of
communism. Post-war anti-communism seems less concerned with the appeals of
communist propaganda, and more concerned with the harm the Party might do by
virtue of its influence in the union movement, and by virtue of its role as local agent of
a foreign power. While these fears were exaggerated, they did at least involve a
realistic assessment of communism's lack of mass appeal. And if after thirty years of
agitation by the Party, communism had no mass appeal, there was little to be lost in
allowing people access to its propaganda.
There are, however, some problems with this analysis. Among the most surprising
features of the Australian censorship system was the degree to which a rigorously
applied system of customs censorship coexisted with a not particularly onerous system
of internal political censorship. In 1932, the Commonwealth banned the postal
transmission of communist literature, and it confiscated such communist literature as it
found in the mails. Otherwise, it took no steps to prosecute those who printed,
published and sold communist publications. It was willing to ban the importation of
books which were assessed as seditious, but it made no attempt to use the provisions
of the Crimes Act 1914 to prosecute those who produced local editions of those same
works for publishing seditious words.170 It banned the postal transmission of
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organisations, reserving much of its most bitter invective for attacks on the ALP and ALPcontrolled unions. Following the rise of Hitler, the Comintern gradually shifted towards a
strategy which envisaged cooperation between communists and others who, while not
being communist themselves, might nonetheless share some of the same goals as the
Comintern and its affiliated parties. This cooperation extended to the party's being willing
to work with the leaders as well as the rank and file of leftish organisations. The ALP was
unreceptive to overtures from those who shortly before had condemned the party as 'social
fascists'. Within the unions, the CPA had more success, its pragmatic militancy winning it
considerable support. The shift in strategy had been completed by 1936. For details, see
Alistair Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia (1969) 72–97; Macintyre, above n 1, 244–
87.
169 From 1932 onwards, there was a steady decline in the frequency of arrests of leftist activists
for public order offences: Douglas, above n 1.
170 As early as 1927, the Party had published Stalin's The Theory and Practice of Leninism. In the
1930s, it produced editions of a number of the banned works of Lenin. One reason for the
Commonwealth's reluctance to prosecute was pragmatism. See, eg, Knowles' advice in
relation to a suggestion that the Barrier Daily Truth be prosecuted: a Broken Hill jury would
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communist literature on the grounds that the CPA was an unlawful association, and if
that was the case, it followed that it was an offence to print, publish or sell any
communist publication.171 Yet no-one was prosecuted for this offence.
States made little use of their censorship powers. The ban on productions of
Clifford Odets' Till the Day I Die at the request of the German Consul-General stands
out as an act of supine appeasement, but it was not seriously enforced,172 and it is
remarkable because it was a rare rather than a routine example of state censorship. In
New South Wales, numerous people were prosecuted under a generally worded
Domain by-law for selling communist literature, and communists sometimes fell foul
of other by-laws when they sought to spread their message. But the states took no
steps to arm themselves with the power to ban the printing and distribution of
communist literature and did little to stop its dissemination. One explanation for the
states' relative liberalism may lie in the degree to which the 'foreignness' of
communism represented a leitmotif in anti-communist rhetoric. But there may be more
mundane explanations, and one may simply be the political costs associated with
attempts to outlaw locally produced literature.
The fact that local editions of prohibited imports could be produced highlights the
fact that the system was a porous one. Customs simply lacked the resources to
investigate every incoming book, so numerous prohibited imports slipped into the
country. Libraries, as we have already seen, included a number of banned publications
on their shelves, where they could be read both by scholars and communist
autodidacts. Opponents of censorship pointed to the relative ease with which they had
been able to lay their hands on prohibited publications.173
It is possibly for these reasons that the issue of customs censorship aroused
surprisingly little concern in the communist papers. The Workers' Weekly, normally
astute to expose the hypocrisy of the liberal-democratic ascendancy, rarely discussed
the issue. There is an ungracious reference to the Scullin government's liberalisation of
the customs regime.174 And, once the Book Censorship Abolition League (BCAL)
campaign had begun, there were some favourable references to it. But on the whole,
customs censorship was treated as if it were one of capitalism's lesser evils. In contrast
to the ban on the internal transmission by post of communist literature, the ban on
imported literature does not seem to have generated massive campaigns of letterwriting, resolution-passing, and telegram sending. Whereas the Friends of the Soviet
Union took the postal ban sufficiently seriously to sue the Commonwealth over it,
communist bookshops took no legal action against the Commonwealth over customs
censorship. This failure probably reflects the degree to which communists could gain
access to prohibited imports if they really wanted to. This in turn meant that the
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never convict, and even a Riverina jury would be unlikely to be unanimous: Knowles to T
C Brennan, 26 August 1935, NAA: A432 1935/1215.
171 Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 30F.
172 Cain, Origins, above n 1, 224; Watson, above n 1, 82. Productions of the play were banned
in states including New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Queensland advised
that in that state, theatre bans were a matter for local governments. The bans were
circumvented by the presentation of 'private' performances. Some 10,000 people are alleged
to have attended private performances in New South Wales: Workers' Weekly, 25 June 1937.
173 See, eg, Duhig, Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 15 NAA: A467 BUNDLE21/SF7/3.
174 Workers' Weekly, 14 February 1930, 1. It concluded by calling for the 'overthrow of the
"Labor" government which is so ably carrying on Bruce's work'.
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arguments developed in imported publications could be transmitted via the Party
media to a broader audience. (Indeed, the bans may have even had the unintended
consequence of slightly strengthening the local party's control over what its members
and supporters could read.) Insofar as copies of actual works were needed for use in
party classes, this need could generally be satisfied thanks to the distinction drawn
between scholarly and propagandist works, which meant that many of the Marxist
classics were freely allowed in. It is also likely that imported literature was far less
important to the Party than either the Party or the government believed. We know
little of how people came to be recruited to the Party, but those who have written
biographies (who are likely to be disproportionately biblivorous) almost never refer to
communist literature as a reason for their decision to join the party.175 In the 1930s,
joining the Party usually turns out to be a visceral reaction to the horrors of the
recession, and one did not need foreign literature to know what these were. Party
members read books, but one senses that they did so to reinforce their faith rather than
to discover whether there was a foundation for it.
Censorship seems to have mattered more to the professional middle class than it
did to the Party. This opposition can in part be understood in instrumental terms. If
communism was to be understood as a political and social phenomenon, access to
communist publications was essential. Scholars of the time may well have overestimated the importance of such publications as guides to the thoughts of leading
communists, but even to be aware of the gap between communist profession and
communist behaviour, access to communist publications was essential. And this points
to one of the reasons why censorship normally makes so little sense. It reminds us that
the impact of a publication depends on how it is used. A communist publication may
be used to reinforce a communist's belief that capitalism should and will be
overthrown. But it may also be used by an anti-communist to show that communists
are committed to the violent overthrow of the established order.176 An attack on
imperialism may set one reader thinking about the moral and economic basis for the
Empire, but it may persuade another reader that communism is anti-British and
unpatriotic. The fact that a pamphlet is cheap may make it accessible, but its cheapness
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175 Space does not permit a comprehensive summary. See generally John Sendy, Comrades
Come Rally: Recollections of an Australian Communist (1978) 11–12. Bernice Morris faithfully
served the Party, but admits (and regrets) that she never mastered the intricacies of
Marxism: Between the Lines (1988). One writer who does seem to have been influenced by
Marxist literature was Rawling: John Pomeroy, 'The Apostasy of James Normington
Rawling' (1991) 37 Australian Journal of Politics and History 21, 32. However, under the
'scholarly literature' exemption, Rawling would have had access to the material in question,
anyway. Besides, while an early recruit, his subsequent history provides warnings about
the reliability of those attracted to the Party by reason rather than emotion.
176 See, for instance, the contributions of Frederic Eggleston (self-styled individualist and
former non-Labor Victorian Attorney-General), and J M Atkinson (of the Henry George
League) in Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 13, 22 NAA: A467 BUNDLE21/SF7/3. In
the 1926 debates on the Crimes Act 1926 (Cth), Francis Forde (ALP, Capricornia) cited
instances of communist propaganda receiving widespread publicity in Nationalist Party
propaganda: Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 17 February
1926, 981. In 1932, Richard Casey (UAP, Corio) stated that he made it his business to read
the Workers' Weekly and the Red Leader and advised fellow MPs to read these and other
communist publications to gain insight into the nature of the communist threat:
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 23 May 1932, 1173.
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may also communicate the sense that communism is vaguely seedy. The language of
communist literature could alienate potential sympathisers, as well as winning others
over.
Both communists and anti-communists have shown wry awareness of this
phenomenon. Bernie Taft reports that one of the students in his class on Marx was so
impressed by Marx's analysis of exploitation that he decided to become a
businessman.177 BA Santamaria mentions a Catholic priest who, in describing the
doctrines that good Catholics should avoid, did so with such effect that several in his
flock became Marxists.178 Indeed, the multiple uses of communist literature ought to
have been obvious to the Commonwealth. For one of the reasons why the AttorneyGeneral's Department periodically expressed the desire to retain pieces of prohibited
literature was that it considered that they could be used as evidence in prosecutions of
the communist party. Stalin's Theory and Practice of Leninism was considered useful
evidence to support the Commonwealth's 1935 application to have the CPA declared
an unlawful association.179 Indeed, in a sense, the multiple uses of communist
literature do seem to have been grasped by the Commonwealth. Scholars (who could
use it dispassionately) and the wealthy (who could usually be relied on to know where
their class interests lay) could be trusted; the proletariat could not. On balance, it seems
probable that communist literature did strengthen communism, by providing
communists with access to arguments that they could cite in support of their cause. But
its contribution was clearly minimal: the CPA's membership in the 1930s was no more
than 4,000, and its electoral support was normally pitiful.180
The fact that conservative governments tolerated some forms of communist
literature and not others indicates that political censorship cannot be understood
simply in terms of the nature and degree of the 'communist threat' as perceived by
Australian governments. It also requires awareness of the degree to which
governments' capacity to engage in political repression is subject to political
constraints, even when the target of that repression is a politically unpopular group.
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177 Bernie Taft, Crossing thePartyLine: Memoirs of Bernie Taft (1994) 45.
178 BA Santamaria, Santamaria: Against the Tide (1983) 7
179 Advice on Evidence, 9 NAA: SP185/1 Box 69. Communist literature was also drawn on by
speakers supporting the Crimes Bill 1926: see Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates,
House of Representatives, 28 Jaunary 1926, 460 (Latham), and by speakers supporting the
Communist Party Dissolution Bill 1950: see Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House
of Representatives, 27 April 1950, 1999–2001 (Menzies); 10 May 1950, 2405–6 (Henry Pearce
(Lib, Capricornia)), 11 May 1950, 2491–2 (John Cremean (ALP, Hoddle)); 2515–6 (Bruce
Wight (Lib, Lilley)); 2554–5 (Leonard Hamilton (Lib, Canning)); 16 May 1950, 2640
(Lawrence Failes (CP, Lawson)); 1 June, 1950, 3573 (Hugh Robertson (CP, Riverina));
Senate, 6 June 1950, 3698–3700 (Sen Ivy Wedgwood (Lib, Vic)); 19 October 1950, 1039 (Sen
Douglas Hannaford (LCL, SA)).
180 Davidson, above n 168, estimates the Party's membership in 1934 as 2,840, and cites 4,000
as the Party's membership prior to its being banned in 1940 (at 69n, 82). The CPA did not
stand candidates in the 1937 general election, and was banned in 1940. In the 1934 Senate
elections, it won 2.2% of the vote nationally: Colin A Hughes and Bruce D Graham, A
Handbook of Australian Government and Politics (1968), 352. (This was less than the
percentage won by the Social Credit Party.) One reason for believing that, on balance,
communist literature may have assisted the Party is that even if it alienated far more
people than it converted, the pool of potential converts to the Party was much greater than
its pool of supporters.
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Because customs censorship was so unambiguously directed at publications of the far
left, it was always regarded with suspicion by the political left. Labor's opposition to
political censorship effectively precluded an effective state political censorship system
since all that was needed was one state in which communist literature could be
produced and it would be almost impossible to prevent its interstate distribution. But
reservations about censorship extended well beyond Labor. Censorship could be
condemned as infantilising, illiberal and as un-British.181 It could be presented as an
insult to the good sense of Australians insofar as it implied that Australians were
unable to resist the illusory seductions of communism.182 It was clearly illiberal, and
therefore calculated to arouse opposition from many academics, lawyers and (more
important) journalists.
Moreover, it is hard to avoid the sense that the inconsistency between political
censorship and liberal-democracy caused unease even among the supporters of
political censorship, especially as the Party shifted from the virulent polemics of the
'class against class' period to the less confrontationist language of the United Front
period.183 When White sought to defend political censorship, his characteristic
response was to attack the promoters of liberalisation by arguing that they wanted to
liberalise moral censorship as well (which they did).184 It was as if he recognised that
moral censorship still commanded widespread support, while political censorship was
becoming increasingly unpopular. A similar awareness might help explain the
apparent contradiction between the government's willingness to ban books and its
reluctance to prosecute those who published and sold them. Administrative
sanctioning tended to be invisible (and the secrecy of the 'list' contributed to this).
Prosecutions under the Crimes Act would have been visible, and might well have
resulted in juries acquitting defendants even when the book in question technically fell
within the law.185 And as the BCAL shrewdly realised, censorship could be presented
as anti-British.
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181 See, for example, the 1935 Commonwealth parliamentary debate on censorship:
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 27 March 1935, 326–55.
182 See, eg, Eggleston, Spicer Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 10 September 1935, 13, 19
NAA: A467/1 BUNDLE 21/SF7/3. Just occasionally, one senses that those using this
argument were slightly dishonest, their real objection to censorship lying in their hope that
some of the censored literature would appeal to the good sense of Australian workers.
183 The change in party line did not go unnoticed. It underlay Knowles' proposals for rewriting the Regulation so that it did not extend to anti-Fascist propaganda. Power was
struck by the change in tone of International Literature between 1934–35: 'I have read this
copy [Jan 35] and the three preceding numbers carefully and am of the opinion that the
policy of the directorate of the magazine has changed considerably in the past twelve
months. Earlier copies contained articles and cartoons that were rabidly revolutionary but
recent issues have been free from these objectionable features. Exception might, perhaps, be
taken to some of the cartoons but these have little or no application to conditions in
Australia and their significance is obscured if not lost to local readers.' Power to Senior
Inspector, 28 June 1935, NAA: A467/1 BUN94/SF42/24 34/140/13.
184 See, for instance, the report of the discussion between White and an anti-censorship
deputation, 10 September 1935: Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 15–6 NAA: A467
BUNDLE21/SF7/3.
185 This may explain why anti-censorship campaigners argued that the problem of seditious
literature (insofar as there was one) should be handled through the courts rather than
administratively: see Duhig, Report of Proceedings of Deputation, 15–6 NAA: A467
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Among the self-congratulatory themes of British history is the success of the British
in securing the abolition of peacetime prior censorship at a time when the practice was
almost universal on the Continent. Those brought up against this cultural backdrop
may not have always given much thought to why this was a good thing, but they are
likely to have assimilated the assumption that it was. Moreover, censorship was not
only un-British in the sense of its being alien to Britain's past. It was also alien to
Britain's present. This constituted the basis for a rational argument against censorship:
if Britain could do without it, why did Australia need it? But it could also draw on the
powerful symbolism of Britain as model. This principle that what circulates in Britain
should be allowed to circulate in Australia was adopted by Scullin to legitimate the
winding-back of censorship. Its symbolic appeal was recognised in the 1932 guidelines,
and the BCAL was able to make much of it. It was almost certainly central to Menzies'
role in the effective abolition of political censorship. 186 In the absence of attempts to
mobilise anti-censorship sentiments, censorship could survive, but once political
censorship was placed on the political agenda, its survival was threatened. Customs
censorship could survive because its impact was limited. Full-scale internal censorship
would almost certainly have activated far more intense opposition.
The rises and falls of political censorship highlight the complex relationship
between law and liberty in Australia. On the whole, political censorship took place
within the limits laid down by law. The problem with political censorship was not that
administrators disregarded the law, but that they implemented it. Liberalisation took
the form of administrative rather than legal change. The coexistence of illiberal laws
and liberal administration is in some ways puzzling. If pressures for liberalisation are
strong enough to produce administrative liberalisation, why are they not strong
enough to produce corresponding changes to the law?
A short-term answer no doubt lies in governments' reluctance to admit that they're
wrong. For the UAP government to have repealed or drastically amended the
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BUNDLE21/SF7/3. The anti-censorship argument to the effect that the issue should be
tried by a court confused the question of whether the status of a book should be resolved by
a court with the question of whether it should be resolved by a court constituted in a
particular way and applying a particular standard of proof. As White pointed out, it was
always open for the importer of a seized book to initiate a court action into the status of the
relevant work: Minutes of meeting between G Fitzpatrick, R Hall and TW White, 6 NAA:
A467 BUN21/SF7/1.
186 McMahon Ball acknowledged Menzies' contribution in The Herald, 16 June 1937, implying
that this was a consequence of a 1935 decision that the Attorney-General was to have the
final say in relation to whether a publication was prohibited: 'Still Political Power over
Books Some Critics Say', The Herald (Melbourne), 16 June 1937, 2. This analysis is
incomplete: even after 1935, Knowles was generally endorsing recommendations from
Customs. (And in 1936 White was claiming that he made the final decision.) What seems to
have changed his recommendations was the 1936 Cabinet decision. Coleman, above n 50,
84 states that Menzies managed to wrest the relevant power from White in 1937, which
does not explain the liberalisation which had already taken place and in any case seems
wrong. Martin who emphasises Menzies' role in the liberalisation process does not discuss
the process and by virtue of his (acknowledged) reliance on Coleman, perpetuates some of
Coleman's errors: Martin, above n 56, 200–2. I have been unable to track down material
bearing on Menzies' contribution to the 1936 change in policy. (It would be in character if
he did, and the fact that his permanent head suggested a similar amendment also suggests
this.)
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Regulation not long after having made it could be presented as a backdown, and in the
world of political symbolism, it is often better to be firm than flexible. A variant lies in
the heterogeneity of governments. Within the UAP government, there was division
over the desirability of liberalisation. Beliefs and egos were at stake. Amending the
Regulation would have involved a substantial defeat for the government's anticommunist wing. Legal stability and administrative change meant respecting the
views and egos of both anti-communists and liberals. One might nonetheless have
expected that Labor would have repealed the Regulation, given its historic opposition
to political censorship. But laws that are opposed by parties in opposition often
become acceptable once the party assumes government. While the government may
have no intention of making use of the law, it may be glad to have it on the books just
in case it might be needed. Moreover, where laws are liberally administered, the
pressures for amendment become far weaker. Administrative liberalism thus
contributes to the survival of relatively repressive laws. In the end, however,
administrative liberalism may lay the basis for the repeal of repressive laws. For the
longer such laws survive, the clearer it is likely to become that they are unnecessary
and the greater the likelihood that their repeal will be politically costless. When, after
40 comatose years, the legal basis for political censorship was finally repealed, there
was no-one left to mourn.187
APPENDIX 1: POLITICIANS, LAWYERS AND
ADMINISTRATORS
Abbott, Edwin, public servant (Trade and Customs), b 1878, entered public service
1893, promoted Chief Surveyor to Deputy Comptroller-General of Customs
(1928) and to Comptroller-General (1933).
Ball, William Macmahon, academic and war-time administrator, b 1901, Head,
Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne, 1932–40 (and later
professor and head); Secretary, Book Censorship Abolition League (BCAL).
Boniwell, Martin C, public servant, b 1883, joined public service, 1899, Chief Clerk,
Attorney-General's Department, 1921–32, Assistant Secretary, 1932–39; Acting
Solicitor-General, 1937; Public Service Arbitrator, 1939–46.
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187 The formal ending of political censorship (except in relation to literature advocating
terrorism) coincided with reforms to 'moral' censorship. These provoked motions in the
Senate and the House of Representatives to disallow the Regulation (which had to be
disallowed either in its entirety or not at all). In the course of the lengthy debates which
followed, the fact that the Regulation also abolished political censorship (except in relation
to material which advocated terrorism) was not even mentioned. See Commonwealth,
Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 4 April 1984, 1161–86, 1219–33; 5 April 1984, 1241–60; 2 May
1984, 1457–64; 10 May 1984, 1891–5, 1938–7; 29 May 1984, 2059–90; ibid, House of
Representatives, 4 June 1984, 2840–55. The only two mentions of the changes to political
censorship were by Senator Brian Harradine (Ind, Tasmania) (ibid, Senate, 2 May 1984,
1458) and Sen Gareth Evans (ALP, Vic; Attorney-General) (ibid, Senate, 29 May 1984, 2073)
who treated it as of no importance.
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Brennan, Thomas Cornelius, lawyer and politician, b 1869, Senator, Vic, 1932–38
(UAP), Acting Attorney-General, for periods, 1934–37.
Brossois, Charles Jerome, public servant (Trade and Customs), b 1889, joined public
service 1922, promoted from Clerk, Shipping Branch (NSW) to Clerk,
Investigation Section (1928), and to Investigation Officer (1935).
Browne, Roland Seymour, Inspector, b 1887, joined public service 1921, Inspector,
Investigation Branch, Melbourne (1921–43), later served in Military
Intelligence.
Carne, Clifton Jenkyn, public servant (Trade and Customs), b 1894, joined public
service 1913, promoted Clerk (Landing Branch, WA) to Clerk (Correspondence
and Records), (1927), Clerk (Jerquer's Branch) (1928), Clerk-in-charge (Statistics
Branch) (1929), Clerk-in-charge (Correspondence and Records) (1930).
Jones, Harold Edward, public servant, soldier and intelligence officer, b 1878, joined
public service, 1898, Director, Investigation Branch (Attorney-General's), 1919–
43.
Knowles, (Sir) George Shaw, public servant, b 1882, joined public service, 1898,
Assistant Secretary, Attorney-General's, 1921–32; Solicitor-General and
Secretary, Attorney-General's, 1932–46.
Latham, (Sir) John Grieg, lawyer, politician and Chief Justice, b 1877, MHR, Kooyong,
1922–34 (Nat, UAP), Attorney-General, 1925–29, 1932–34, Chief Justice of High
Court, 1935–52.
Lyons, Joseph Aloysius, teacher and state and federal politician, b 1879, MHR, Wilmot,
1929–39 (ALP until 1931, then UAP), Prime Minister, 1932–39.
Menzies, (Sir) Robert Gordon, lawyer and state and federal politician, b 1894, MHR,
Kooyong, (UAP, Liberal); Attorney-General, 1934–39; Prime Minister, 1939–41,
1949–1966.
Power, Horace Richard, public servant (Trade and Customs), b 1888, joined public
service 1909, promoted from Clerk (Parcels Post (Vic)) to Invoice Examining
Officer (1926), Investigation Officer (1935) and Senior Investigation Officer
(1938).
Simonds, Terence Bede, public servant (Trade and Customs), b 1888, joined public
service 1905, promoted Clerk 3rd class (Correspondence and Records, Central)
to Clerk-in-charge (1931), Senior Clerk (Correspondence and Records).
White, Thomas Walter, soldier, company director, and politician, b 1888, MHR
Balaclava, 1929–51 (Nat, UAP, Lib), Minister for Trade and Customs, 1933–38,
and Minister for Air and Civil Aviation, 1949–51. Resented Menzies' lack of
war experience, jealous of his 'superior gifts', and expressed this in his private
diaries: see Martin, above n 42 at 124, 248.
Sources: Gazette, 1925–1943 (including 1925 list of all then serving Commonwealth
public servants); Australian Dictionary of Biography; Who's Who in Australia
(various editions).