HC Deb 28 November 1947 vol 444 cc2355-64

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford)

I wish to draw the attention of the House this afternoon to a matter of considerable importance from several points of view. I refer to the practice and habit of editors of many of our British weekly and monthly magazines in buying on a big scale the second rights of American light fiction, instead of making use of the output of our own authors. In the same way, illustrations are purchased by these magazines and, outside the periodical field, certain newspapers are even buying some of their strip cartoons from across the Atlantic. This is almost entirely a one-way traffic.

I know that "Jane" appears occasionally in various American publications, and I know that my right hon. Friend, on hearing that, will assume that I am thinking of the "Daily Mirror," in which journal she appears day after day with all her romantic background, but I would like to explain in considerable detail what is actually happening in a situation in which up to 80 per cent. of the fiction published in this country is of American origin. It has, of course, previously appeared in magazines like "McCall's," "Colliers," "The Ladies Home Journal," the "Saturday Evening Post" and others of a similar type across the Atlantic. A small group of agents in this country circulate these periodicals to British editors in the three competing publishing houses of Odhams, Newnes and Pearson, and the Amalgamated Press, who in their turn select their stories from these magazines at prices ranging from 20 to 50 guineas each. They get them appropriately Anglicised, so that they pass as British stories and then they put them on our bookstalls in such journals as "Woman and Beauty," "Home Notes," "Woman's Own," "Woman's Journal" and "Woman's Pictorial," copies of which, incidentally, I have with me here.

Odhams' weekly paper "Woman" is, generally, more Yankee than the rest, and is sometimes 100 per cent. American in its fiction. I am sure that the readers of that, as of the other journals I have mentioned, do not realise this, and, like the majority of women who are aimed at by most of the surviving magazines in this country, they are grossly deceived. They cannot recognise the transatlantic source of these stories. They do not know, for example, that "Florida" has been struck out and "Maidenhead" put in, and that for "Birmingham" they should really read "Detroit," and for "St. James's Park," "Central Park, New York." In every way, in my judgment, this represents a very dangerous trend, having regard to the fact that their readers are unconsciously absorbing propaganda for the American way of life.

I have no objection to the American way of life for Americans, but let them keep it, I suggest, in America. In regard to the strip cartoons which are keeping our own artists out of a job, there is Rip Kirby, who battles with gangsters every morning in the "Daily Mail." He always drives his big American car on the right hand side of the road, with the result that his country of origin cannot be concealed. Then there is the comic strip that appears nightly in "The Star" newspaper. The mischievous twins depicted in that paper appear to have access to an endless quantity of ice-cream and bananas—a disheartening thing for those British youngsters who fellow daily their adventures.

No one wants to stop important literature or real art, any more than great music, from moving freely across national frontiers. Indeed, the more that happens, the better I should be pleased. But some 4,000 stories, bought at the prices I have named, represent a serious dollar leakage, which should be plugged. Moreover, their coming here definitely penalises our own writers and artists, and at the same time does incalculable harm to the minds and outlook of their readers, as I hope to show the House before I sit down. It may be argued that dollars spent in this way are offset by the earnings of British authors in the States, but that simply is not so. There is no opening whatever in American magazines for the young British writer or artist trying to establish himself. I know our Shaws and Priestleys can at any time gatecrash the American market, but they are very different from those who write for the ordinary run of magazines published weekly and monthly in this country.

The large sum of money which is literally going West every month unless something is done by my right hon. Friend to stop it, seems a disgraceful thing in this time of economic crisis. Almost worse is the fact that this country should become a dumping ground for a vast amount of trash which would be better kept at home. This export of hokum to Britain should be stopped, both for our sake, and for the sake of America herself. It constitutes a veritable Niagara of piffle and slush, which hides the true America behind a facade of synthetic sentimentality, cheap cynicism and sex turned on and off like a tap.

I strongly believe our British way of life is second to none. Why, therefore, cannot our magazine readers have stories which tell of the way we think and feel in this country today? Our attitude to divorce, for instance, is quite different from that of our cousins over the seas, yet one magazine I have seen appealing to working girls recently published a story in which the young heroine had been married four times, and was contemplating a fifth adventure. It all happened, I would add, for the much-deceived readers, in Dewsbury, or Rochdale—

Dr. Morgan (Rochdale)

God forbid.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

—and certainly not in Chicago, or Hollywood. The very titles of the stories are utterly revolting and revealing and hon. Members would be amazed if I quoted them at any length. I will mention a few for their edification: "Date Tonight," "Kisses that really count," "Pick-up Secrets," "Love is an Art," "Every Paradise has a Serpent." These are some of the sloppy catchphrases which are used.

Thousands of our young people of both sexes read these stories and, unfortunately, they are unconsciously as a result absorbing the American more casual attitude toward marriage, infidelity, divorce, and, indeed, to life itself. They find portrayed for them in these stories boys and girls of school age involved in romantic and passionate affairs. The stories are mostly set against a background of plenty, and the driving motive of the heroes and heroines is almost invariably one of blatant self-interest. The hero is very often a rich predatory type of man, and the heroine a woman whose main purpose in life is to grab a man at all costs, preferably a rich one. The roaring carnival of quick drinks, adolescent sex, bright lights and dimmed thinking, in which the characters in these stories play their roles, has little to do with the great problems facing this country and the world today. These magazines also have a tremendous sale overseas, in the Dominions, in India and foreign countries, where they are painting an utterly false picture of life in our austere homeland. That is another serious aspect of this situation.

Surely the editors of our periodicals and magazines can be aroused by my right hon. Friend to a sense of their responsi- bilities at this time. I beg him to drop them a hint, if he does nothing else, for I am certain that we are entitled to expect the pages of British magazines and periodicals to reflect our own way of life and our own national viewpoint, especially in these days of difficulty and stress. An important consideration is that there is plenty of British talent available for this purpose. As I have already said, American stories are all very well in American magazines, but our own editors should both buy and publish British. If I could but persuade my right hon. Friend this afternoon to arrange to stop the dollar leakage to which I have referred, the proprietors of our own magazines would have no option, as a result, but to perform the useful public service which I am advocating. I ask him to do all he possibly can to help in achieving the objectives which I have in mind.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker (Brentford and Chiswick)

Can my hon. Friend give an estimate of the number of dollars which are involved, and about how much of this material is being brought over? Can he give any figures?

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

I think that the sum involved is at least £100,000 and is probably very much more. Some of the stories are paid for at the rate of 50 guineas each, and some at less than that, down to about 20 guineas, but the overall amount is considerable, and I suggest it is an amount in relation to the dollar drain which is well worth stopping here and now.

4.13 p.m.

Dr. Morgan (Rochdale)

Far be it from me to attack the principle of much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) has said, but when he mentions a decent, honest, clean constituency like Rochdale, it is time for me to say that I thought his speech was rather exuberant, flowery and rather extravagant in regard to the sort of stuff of American origin that is published in America and also in English journals.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

Has my hon. Friend read them?

Dr. Morgan

Of course I have read them. I do not sit still and do nothing in this life.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

Then my hon.

Friend must be wasting his time.

Dr. Morgan

I assure my hon. Friend that I am not. My time is fully occupied. I will change places with him any day. As he was speaking, several thoughts crossed my mind. I hate pornographic literature. Every decent citizen should set an example of living a clean, honest, conventional life, because those conventions are known to be for the good of the community. I do not believe in divorce; I do not believe in all this senseless stuff that appears in most of these journals; but there is such a thing as freedom of the Press, which many Members here talk a lot about. If I have wanted to have an article published in an American journal, I have never had any difficulty in getting it published, either under a nom-de-plume or under my own name. My hon. Friend talks about pornography. People are not compelled to buy these things. What about a campaign to tell the public that they should not indulge in this sort of reading because it is not good for them? What is our education for? When I hear hon. Members talking about the bad, extreme side of one phase of life in America, as we used to talk about a certain phase of life in France, I remember the other clean side of America. The superficial scum in New York, like the sort of people we used to see in prewar Paris, are not representative of either of those nations.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

That is what I have said.

Dr. Morgan

I know. The hon. Gentleman has said many things. I urge that this sort of flowery statement, not representative of the true facts, is not helping the relationship between the United States and this country. The hon. Member was talking about a country which has a good educational system with excellent facilities for learning, and good organisation from the trade union point of view—

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

That is not the point.

Dr. Morgan

I wish the hon. Member would let me make my own case. I know that these new Members who have just entered Parliament think that they know everything. I have been in public life for as long as some of them have lived. I want to make the point that while they are talking about a highly organised civilised country, they have not said a word about the conditions which we allow to exist in our Colonies. In the island of Barbados for the last 15 years we have had an illegitimate birthrate of between 60 and 70 per cent. Hon. Members talk about pornography in journals of this kind, but they have allowed such bad economic conditions to exist in certain parts of the British Empire without saying a word about it. Then they say that it is not the point.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

It is not.

Dr. Morgan

I want to give the Minister an opportunity to reply; therefore, I wish I could get on. As one Conservative rightly said, when hon. Members on this side of the House cannot meet a point they indulge in ribald laughter. Laughter, as I know very well from my experience as a medical officer at an asylum, is not a sign of intelligence. It was the best thing said by a Conservative Member for some time.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

Astonishing.

Dr. Morgan

It is not astonishing, it is perfectly true. I hope that this sort of subject will not be chosen in future for the Debate on the Adjournment, because it is harmful. There are other methods of dealing with the matter. This affects the journalistic and educational relationships between this country and America. The churches, the social and welfare organisations, and the trade unions have work to do. Let them do the work which they are doing as well as they can in very difficult circumstances of the present world situation. For it to be taken over by the hon. Member for Bedford is, in my view, a very poor reflection on the intelligence of this House.

4.17 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)

We were all startled by the astonishing knowledge which the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) showed of this type of literature. I am afraid that my own excursions into that field have been very limited. Therefore, I was all the more interested in what he had to say. We are very glad to think that although he must have gone far and ranged wide over this field, it does not seem to have done him any harm. We should like to believe that this literature which, unfortunately, circulates in the country, does as little harm in the homes of others who read it. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) has answered some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford. It is true, as he said, that representations should not really be made to me, but should be directed to those who import this stuff.

Let me briefly indicate what the situation is. In those far off, dim, distant days before the war, there was no restriction whatever on what literature could pass between countries. There was no limit to what one imported nor, within limits, of course, to the kind of literature one imported. When the war came, and shipping space was short and exchange difficulties developed, it became absolutely impossible to allow that kind of thing to continue. Imports were, therefore, completely restricted, and no imports of fiction of any kind were allowed from the United States of America. After the war, the prohibition on fiction from the United States continued. On the other hand, an open general licence, issued by the Board of Trade, was given to importers who desired to import literature—children's books, fiction, stories, and all the rest of it—from Commonwealth countries. The object of this—and I think it was a worthy object, and one which we should try to support—was to reinstitute and get going again the free flow of ideas, contained in books and literature of all sorts, between the Old Country and the Dominions. I am glad to think that this trade which, before the war was small, began to grow after the war, for reasons which we all appreciate, such as the shortage of paper and the difficulties of publication in this country. The trade not only began to grow but reached fairly considerable dimensions.

At the end of 1946, with the American Loan Agreement in being, and Article 9 of that Agreement laying down certain conditions, it became absolutely essential that we should look at this matter again. As the House will remember, we undertook as from 1st January, 1947, not to discriminate against the United States in import restrictions on any product whatever. That being so, it was quite obvious that we could not continue to refuse to allow American fiction to come in and, at the same time, permit without limit any type of book, including fiction, to come in from the Dominions. We could not extend the open licensing system to the United States of America, because we had not the dollars to permit it. Nor could we place—indeed we thought it would be unfair to try to place—a quota system on the Commonwealth countries, because, as I say, their exports to this country went up by leaps and bounds after the war and it would have been unfair to go back, as far as they were concerned, to a prewar quota. It was therefore decided to permit anyone to import freely into this country any literature he pleased. No limit was placed on the imports whatever.

But another limitation of another kind was instituted, which was that importers who, in the main, were those who imported literature of all sorts before the war, should undertake that 50 per cent. by value of what they imported would be re-exported. That obligation was global. It did not mean they had to re-export to the country from which they imported. So long as they re-exported to any country up to 50 per cent. of what they imported, licences were given to them quite freely to import anything they desired to bring in. Bound, as we are, under Article 9 of the Loan Agreement not to discriminate against the United States of America, we cannot follow the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford, because, if we did, it would mean that we should also have to discriminate against and cut off books, and magazines, and literature of all kinds coming to us from the Dominions.

The hon. Member for Bedford asked why it was that Exchange Control permitted this traffic to go on, and why we allowed dollars to be drained away in this direction. The situation being as I have described, the Exchange Control has found the currency necessary to pay for any copyrights or publication rights of music, books, cartoons, and all the rest of it, subject only to satisfactory evidence being forthcoming that the debt was due. We cannot go beyond that. We cannot set up a censorship on what is brought into this country. In any case, I doubt whether it would be a practical proposition to do so, apart from any other considerations. We should have to have a large body of people kept busy reading all these stories, which my hon. Friend has obviously spent a great deal of time in reading, and looking through pile after pile of cartoons, and when they came to the end of their work, we should still only have their views. It would be a bad thing to set up a censorship of this kind, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) has said.

The real remedy lies in the hands of those who import. I agree that there is a great deal of trashy stuff coming in, which has to be paid for, and that the money does not appear to be earning a good return from our point of view. It will be a good thing, therefore, if what has been said in this Debate reaches some of the publishing houses who import stories of this kind and if these publishing houses can be made to realise that it is better to bring in another type of literature. It is, moreover, true that the products of British authors go to the United States, and this is another reason for not doing what has been suggested. It might also invite reprisals. I believe that British authors find a pretty ready market in the United States for their products, and we should like to see that market increased. The remedy, therefore, is in the hands of the importers. We cannot ourselves set up some sort of censorship. The most we can do is to educate public opinion in such a way that it dislikes this kind of literature and then, once the publishers and importers realise that this is not what the public wants, the traffic will cease.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

I hope that my right hon. Friend recognises that I never advocated censorship, which has been referred to both by him and by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan). I did not advocate tackling the matter on these lines at all. I think that the word "censorship" in my right hon. Friend's reply is unfortunate.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-eight Minutes past Four o'Clock.