Mental Rubbish from Overseas: A Public Protest (1935)

Printed book

ML 301/4A1

Intellectual Value

By Acting Customs Minister John Perkins, 11 May 1938 http://blog.naa.gov.au/banned/category/bannedbooks/prohibitingpulp/

"Certain publications are … being imported into Australia, which have no literary or intellectual value and are obviously published in order to cater for those seeking to satisfy depraved tastes for morbidity, sadism, sensuality, etc. These books are usually printed in luridly attractive covers … [and] are retailed at prices ranging as low as 3d. or 4d. a copy."

'Evil Trash' and 'Magazine Offal'

By Peter Coleman Obscenity, Blasphemy, Sedition- the rise and fall of literary censorship in Australia pg 193

"By 1934 around 100,000 American 'pulp' magazines- so called because if they were not dumped somewhere they would be returned to the paper mills for pulping- were being exported to New South Wales each month."

The Cost to Australia

By Senator Donald Cameron, Federal Parliament speech 1939 Parliamentary Debates, Senate and House of Representatives vol. 162, 5 December 1939 pg 2040

“Australian writer and printers are being starved… Pulps are landed in Australia at practically their cost as waste paper, and sold through chain stores and other retail places at prices much below their face value and cost of production in the country of origin. During the last couple of months, three steamers … discharged no fewer than 305,000 copies of back-dated magazines in Sydney”