THE PRESS ACT

WE cannot help thinking that it has been a great mistake on the part of the Press Laws Committee to have decided to hold its sittings in camera. The matter in regard to which it has been recording evidence is of the utmost public importance, those who have been selected for giving evidence are all or for the most part men who have never made secret of their views in this matter, and the Committee itself is composed, with one single exception, of Indians and, with two exceptions of non-officials. Why the proceedings of such a body in such circumstances should not be open to the Press and the public is more than we know or can see. It is quite possible that the Committee will publish all that is worth publishing, both in the written statements and the oral evidence of witnesses along with its own report, but such publication in the Press of the evidence of witnesses from day to day is vital, first, because a busy public would not care to go through a thick volume of evidence, weeks, if not months, after it has been tendered, and at a time when attention would for the most part be concentrated on the report itself; secondly, because the late publication of the evidence would deprive the Committee of the advantages of such criticism as the Press and the public might choose to make in regard to it; thirdly, because the advantages that a later witness would derive from the experience of a former in the second case would be entirely lost in the first. The decision to hold the sittings in camera is all the more surprising, because if the report is to be believed both the questions and the answers are as a rule discreet, and when there is any attempt at a deviation from the correct standard, the Chairman is there to pull up either the erring member or the erring witness as the case may be.