§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the practice at the Foreign Office is to signify by asterisks or lacunœ, or by the heading "Extract," that documents published by that Office are not published in their entirety: will he explain why a different practice prevails at the War Office: and, with the view of preventing the publication of documents from which passages have been suppressed, without any notification of the suppression, from conveying the impression that these documents are published in their entirety and misleading the public, whether he will alter the practice by which documents from which material passages have been suppressed are published by the War Office as complete accounts of the transactions to which they relate.
§ MR. BRODRICKIt never has been the practice to publish despatches with asterisks or lacunœ indicating omitted portions, and I have no intention of altering this practice.
In reply to a further Question as to the practice at the Foreign Office,
§ MR. BRODRICKsaid he had no desire to alter the practice, which was, he believed, to put something in the heading.