Censorship

Thursday, March 8th., Cadogan Square, London.

John Buchan came for tea yesterday. He was invited for 4.30 and arrived at 4.27. I expect he had been 'hanging about' nearby to be sure of his time; I would have been. He had a committee meeting nearby for 5.30, and at 5.15 he simply got up and left. He is a thoroughly organised man who I have known for decades and I admire him greatly.

We spoke about censorship, amongst other things. Am I in favour of censorship? Of course I am, and so is he. No country can exist without some form of censorship. I was asked the other day whether I would permit in Britain the unrestricted circulation of one of the most wonderful and original of modern novels, James Joyce's "Ulysses". My plain reply was that I would not. It simply would not do. A censorship there must be. But I maintain that any form of censorship does some harm; it must do. The question is whether it does more harm than good. I think that our present censorship does do more harm than good and ought, if anything, to be weakened, not strengthened. But not eliminated altogether.

In fact I am not in favour of any alteration to the law at the present time because it might, despite excellent motives, be too easily altered for the worse. We have to keep in mind that laws are enacted by politicians and often miss their targets. Best to leave the law alone and entrust liberty to its sane administration and to the tendency for all excessively drastic laws to fall into desuetude through their own inherent absurdity. As a fact the present law on censorship fell into partial desuetude from the moment it came into operation for the reason that to apply it strictly would have meant its instant death from ridicule.

I felt fatigued somehow after Buchan left. Not by him as he is most brisk and has a tonic effect generally. So I rested for a while and, feeling better, took up the play again and reeled it off with strange ease.