Mr Christopher Woodhouse: ..., artistic or other merit by introducing a special defence of publication for the public good. The other was to strengthen the powers available to the authorities for suppressing the traffic in pornography These recommendations formed the basis of the Act of 1959, which was introduced as a Private Member's Measure by the hon. Member for Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), whom I am happy to see...
Dr Horace King: ...of which include masturbation, lesbianism, and fornication, who can honestly say that Dr. Williams is not justified in his demand for a clean-up of the cinema, T.V. screen and bookstalls? Pornography, especially when it is defended as high art, is extremely profitable. I must confess that I am less troubled about the serious Swedish film than I am about the mass of rubbish which cannot...
Mr Julian Snow: ... law-abiding people of the—speaking geographically—great areas of America. There is no doubt that certain forms of literature coming to us has a bad effect. I am referring not particularly to pornography, but to literature which describes what my hon. Friend spoke of as the acquisitive form of attitude to life. Admittedly, this has been an example of a very bad influence in our lives....
Mr Reginald Paget: ...—though perhaps someone may produce one for me—which says that something is imported only at the point at which it comes out of Customs. For instance, I think that an offence of importing pornography is committed before the pornography emerges from Customs.
Mr Simon Digby: ...but not in another? Is it not undesirable that old books, of which it could be argued that they have some historical and literary merit, should attract all the attention when a great deal of modern pornography, which does not have such arguments in its favour, does not receive enough attention?
Mr Henry Brooke: ..., in his reply to the Adjournment Debate on 3rd December. Decisions of the courts have, however, revealed defects in the Dowers under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, to deal with this type of pornography, and I am considering what amendment of the law may be required.
Mr Fenner Brockway: ...Jewish Question. I hold it in my hand. It is too revolting to describe to this House. Yet it has been printed, and I found subsequently that it was even publicly advertised. We have laws against pornography and obscene literature. Racial obscenity is the worst obscenity of all. It is a small minority who belch this poison, but it can affect many minds. A humanly civilised society would not...
Mr Roy Wise: .... These people have a number of amateur assistants who do not realise that they are taking part in a comfortable and successful plot. We have bishops who testify to the moral good of works of pornography and thus help this campaign. We have a body which has been described in the following terms: It is an alliance of Pacifists, of Do-Gooders, of people who passionately believe that the...
...partly in a vicarious capacity because this affects the actions of a number of separate authorities. My right hon. Friend is concerned to watch the progress in the battle against the flood of pornography, because if the law is not working properly, and amending legislation is required, he would be responsible for sponsoring it. As it happens there have been some decisions in the courts...
Mr Maurice Edelman: ...to restrain him in the expression of those views. The hon. Member gave a catalogue, a sort of scale of moral values, which was undoubtedly interesting. However, if he would address himself to the pornography of violence seen every night on television and to the incitement to immorality which appears not only on television but in the Sunday newspapers in particular, aspects of journalism...
Brigadier Sir Otho Prior-Palmer: ...people pay tax, and the control by the Government of the actions of the B.B.C. Whether this control is too weak, I do not know, but it certainly needs to be tightened. We are getting accustomed to pornography, homosexuality and prostitution, but the latest example on television is blatant blasphemy. Usually, when one writes to the Director-General to complain, he has not seen the line in...
Mr William Deedes: ...of today. Lord Beaverbrook was once described as a pedlar of dreams. It may be unfashionable and reactionary to say it, but I prefer a prominent, public pedlar of dreams to an anonymous pedlar of pornography. At least one knows who the proprietor is, what he is doing and for what he is responsible—he is often only too anxious to tell us. Popular newspapers, which in the main we are...
Mr R.A. Butler: No, Sir, I do not think that the new Act is any less severe in regard to obscenity and, in fact, it is a great deal more severe in regard to pornography, but it does now give the chance to bring in evidence on certain terms decided by Parliament. After that, we must leave the matter to the jury.
Mr Dudley Smith: ...the local Press because it is becoming increasingly fashionable in this country to attack the Press. I know that a good case could be made against the gutter sections of the Press which print near-pornography, and do great disservice to their profession. However, by and large, the Press does a good job, often in adverse circumstances. We are faced with the fact that the freedom of the...
Sir Leslie Plummer: ...as he has received most other points which we have raised with him recently. We have made it quite clear that the promoters of the Bill have no desire in any way to aid the trader in pornography in his work, and the Amendments to the Amendment are not directed to making the task of that gentleman any easier than it is today. I must say, however, that it seems to me that what is now...
Mr Maurice Edelman: ...are constantly being presented in a glamorised form? Is it not the case that this embellishment of crime without any genuine artistic or moral purpose can be as corrupting to immature minds as pornography? In these circumstances, and in view of the complaint in particular of the Police Gazette, will not the right hon. Gentleman bring the matter to the attention of the Independent...
Mr R.A. Butler: ...on creative work. The difficulty, which the House will have to examine in this matter is this. The area between truly creative work which some might find offensive or immoral, and the depths of pornography is vast. It is somewhere between those two extremes that the law has to place a limit to define what is permitted and what is not. The problem is how to set the limit right, and the...
Wing Commander Sir Robert Grant-Ferris: ...law that Barnsley Brewery, with the connivance of the Commission, is filling in the canal at Barnsley. I have photographs with me —very disgusting photographs they are; I could call them canal pornography—showing the tipping of refuse and men engaged on filling in the canal on behalf of Barnsley Brewery. As this is a statutory navigation, it is an illegal act. The Bowes Committee is...
Mr Anthony Kershaw: ...to say what are the complaints, not in detail but in general, if the House is to form any judgment upon the remedies which I wish to propose. The complaints, as we know only too well, are that pornography and crime are unreasonably exploited, chat the pursuit of the exceptional and sensational has been carried too far, and that there have been intrusions into private grief. Furthermore,...
Viscount Lambton: ...curtailing proper literature and indecent publishers are taking advantage of the situation. That is why it is so essential that there should be a further differentiation in the law as to what is pornography and what is decent. artistic literature. The Bill, which has attached to it a very simple Explanatory Memorandum, is itself a comparatively simple one to understand. Many of the...
