Fight for Freedom

In London 1,000 steamed-up newsmen--from editors and reporters to press room and circulation employes--mass-met and demanded that freedom be restored to the British press. They wanted freedom restored by repeal of Section 2D of British Defense Regulations.

Section 2D, passed by Parliament during the invasion scare of 1940, gives the Government power to suppress any publication without trial. So far, 2D has been used only against the Communist Daily Worker. But when the Churchill Government threatened to use it to silence the London Daily Mirror (TIME, March 30) Britain's editors were aroused.

Last week, they unanimously voted that 2D was an "intolerable impediment to free thought and expression." They even agreed that the 16-month-old ban on the Daily Worker should be lifted. Their position : Why continue suppression of a fanatic sheet at the cost of creating a Communist martyr and jeopardizing faith in British democracy?

In south Wales, meanwhile, a campaign was started to elect Frank Owen, now Private No. 7956306 in the Royal Armored Corps, as an Independent candidate to Parliament. Until the draft abruptly silenced him two months ago, Owen was one of Britain's loudest objectors to 2D. Crack editor of Beaverbrook's Evening Standard, tall, flamboyant Owen, who called himself a "Sudeten Welshman," had struck awakening punches against British war lethargy, led the fight for a Second Front. He was called up this spring, immediately after Beaverbrook left for the U.S. Some thought it unusual that he was not deferred, as other key British newsmen have been, although he did not ask for deferment. Should he win a seat in the House, Private Owen will not only be able to resume writing; he can also talk telling politics. No political novice, Owen has already served two years in the House: he was elected in 1929 on a Laborite ticket when he was 23.

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