I HAVE NOT read the works of M. Jean Genet,
and for all I know they might give me the same nausea as they gave the Chairman of the Birmingham Public Library Committee; but I do not feel that the Government ought to shelter behind his opinion, and I certainly do not feel that it should have authorised their seizure by the Customs. Mr. Enoch Powell, defending this action in the Commons, cited The Times's verdict that the only answer in such cases is 'the constant challenging of each disputable exercise of censorship'; as the offer of a test case in the courts, he said, had not been accepted, this right of challenge had gone by default. This is an ingenious argument, but it won't wash. The Times was arguing, as I remem- ber, for the challenging of court decisions when local magistrates make asses of themselves by banning, say, the Decameron. Is Mr. Powell sug- gesting that the State should be allowed to ban books indiscriminately, on the pretext that buyers can, if they wish, go to the trouble and expense of proving that the books are not obscene in the courts?
Previous page
