COLONEL DAWNAYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the conduct of yesterday's Evening "Standard" in publishing, with its evening edition, false reports of the defeat of our Troops; and, whether he will take steps to prevent the continuance of a practice which is calculated to cause needless anxiety and alarm to the public, for the purpose of increasing the circulation of newspapers?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTSir, the Home Office has many miscellaneous duties, without adding the duty which the hon. and gallant Member seeks to impose upon it. We cannot undertake to see 32 that newspapers do not make statements which are unfounded in fact. A great many people seem to take for granted that everything they read in a newspaper is necessarily true. My experience does not bear out that belief. It is a mistake altogether. This is light literature which belongs rather to the department of fiction than history. It is intended to be bought and read. It is not intended to be believed. If the public would only understand that they would have really the remedy which the hon. and gallant Member wishes in their own hands. As long as there is a demand for this sensational correspondence, for this imaginary news, it is sure to be supplied. If the demand ceases, in this as in other industries, the supply will fail. The only practical remedy I can suggest to the hon. and gallant Member is one which I offer not at all in an official sense, and it is, that people, when they hear special editions shouted in the streets, should not buy them, and if they cannot resist buying them, at all events they should not believe what they read in them.