"Freedom of the Pen — Authors' Grave Concern."

Bates is one of seven signatories of this letter concerned that obscenity trials might "open the way to a puritanical crusade, backed by police prosecution, against authors who claim the liberty and the right of describing the realities of life, freely and fearlessly for adult minds."

There is no evidence that Bates participated in the writing of the text.

As reported in the Daily Express (February 3, 1955, p. 5) a Society of Authors committee (on which Bates served) submitted to the Home Secretary the draft of an Obscene Publications Bill to address the concerns raised in his essay 'Witch-Hunt in the Bookshops.'

In the Times (October 27, 1954, p. 7, attached).