Going back to interesting stuff my friends send me, someone into the history of publishing provided me with this exchange from 1821 between Blackwood, the magazine publisher, and Ballantyne, his regular printer.
It seems the question of whether people are bounden to enable publication of others' views is in no way new!
Annals of a Publishing House, Vol I by Margaret Oliphant (1897)
archive.org/details/annalsofpublishi01olipuoft/page/338/mode/2up
p338
We imagine it would startle the publishers of to-day, almost as much as Balaam was startled by an unlooked-for remonstrance, did there proceed from any printing-office charged with their work an indignant appeal like this:—
James Ballantyne to W. Blackwood.
“Do you really mean to insert that most clever but most indecently scurrilous attack upon Hogg ? For my own part, I do not stand up for Hogg's conduct; but such language as is applied to him appears to me absolutely unwarrantable, and in your Magazine peculiarly and shockingly offensive.
“You will do as you think best certainly; but I must at once say that if it goes in I must withdraw, in all subsequent numbers, from the concern. How much I shall regret this on many accounts I need not say; but I cannot allow such an article to appear with even my implied approbation attached to it. It is hard, you may think, that an editor should be fettered by his printer; but I cannot help this. The printer must not be made to encounter what he considers to be disgrace.”
Mr Blackwood immediately replied as follows:—
W. Blackwood to James Ballantyne.
“The article on Hogg is to be very much altered indeed, else you may depend upon it that / could not allow it to appear. But really of this you must permit me to be judge, for, disagreeable and unpleasant as it would be for us to part, I cannot submit to be told what must not insert in the Magazine. My character and interest are at stake, and you may depend upon it that nothing will appear in the Magazine but what it will be both for my credit and interest to publish, and, of course, for you to print.
“While I feel myself obliged to say this, I beg to assure you that nothing will give me greater pleasure than to receive any remarks from you at all times. As a friend, I will value them, as you know that no man is more open to reason than I am but as your favourite Bard says, ‘Not upon compulsion, Hal.’
“All I shall add is, that I hope we shall never have two words of difference upon this or any other subject that will be unpleasant to either of us.”
But Signer Aldiborontiphoscophornio could not let well alone:—
James Ballantyne to W. Blackwood.
“Surely, my dear sir, I never could say or hint that you were not the sole and irresponsible judge of what is to be inserted in your own Magazine ? Certain it is, at least, that I had no intention to convey any such absurd meaning, and I hereby disclaim it as strongly as possible. All that I meant to say was—and surely the earlier and the more explicitly it was said the better—that I regarded the article on Hogg, as it at present stands, as of such a nature that if it were published in its present shape I could not continue to be the printer. This, you are aware, is only exerting in my own case that power of judging and deciding which every man of independence must exert in order to secure the continuance of his independence.
“I assure you, my dear sir, I am far too well aware of the value of your employment and confidence hastily or rashly to forfeit it; and I think nothing is more likely than that in most cases that regard the feelings of honourable minds we shall agree ; and I truly rejoice that great alterations are to be made in the article. You will allow that it needs them.”