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The British Isles1973 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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Early in the war when paper allocations were unexpectedly high, the Society placed substantial orders for books and booklets with different printers. When the Society placed a big contract for The New World in paperback edition, the printer refused to print the book unless references to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy were deleted. This the Society refused to do. Prospects of getting the book printed seemed remote.
Then it was that Harry Briggs came into the office. He was a partner in a printing business that had just sold out to another firm. He had capital from the sale. He wanted to know whether the Society could use it and use him. Briggs knew of a printing business that might be for sale. He negotiated and bought it, a going concern with a staff and a manager who knew all about printing. Soon the unexpurgated edition of The New World began rolling off the presses.
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The British Isles1973 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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In August 1943, the Society booked the Royal Albert Hall and fourteen other halls throughout Britain for the “Free Nation” Theocratic Assembly. The public address was to be “Freedom in the New World,” and was advertised widely. However, the manuscript for this talk, as well as others for the assemblies, was confiscated by the censor. As it happened, the new booklet, Fighting for Liberty on the Home Front, had not been issued to the British field owing to printing difficulties. This was made available for the conventions and the material read at the time set for the public talk. The title as well as the material was certainly appropriate. The chairman explained to the audience that “Freedom in the New World” could not be given because the censor had withheld the manuscript. At the end of the lecture, the speaker read a statement setting out the facts of the government’s unwarranted ban “which gives neither reason nor cause for its existence.” The audience, the immediate victims, were invited to fight for liberty on the home front and signify their intention to do so by saying “Aye!” In fifteen assemblies 17,500 people responded enthusiastically. Each assembly sent a telegraphic appeal to the king. The Society also furnished a copy of the public lecture to each member of Parliament and to all connected with the government, together with a covering letter giving the facts of the oppressive censorship.
The Society well knew the importance of assembling together so that the brothers might be able to gain strength and courage, not only to meet the pressing difficulties, but to push them back. Thus it was that in the spring of 1944, fifty-five small assemblies were organized for the British Isles. The public talk for all of these was “Freedom in the New World,” the speech the censor did not wish the people in Britain to hear the previous year.
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