§
We have received the following statement from the editor of the 'Times':—'Mr. Asquith's statement in the House of Commons this afternoon renders it necessary to make it quite clear the position of the 'Times' in publishing yesterday the dispatch which has provoked so much criticism in other newspapers to-day.
The dispatch, which reached the office of the 'Times in the early hours of Saturday evening, was from the pen of an experienced and trustworthy correspondent who has seen lighting in many parts of the world and is not in the least likely to be deceived by idle rumours. As such it was necessarily treated with serious consideration by the editorial staff of the 'Times,' and, in accordance with instructions, was at once submitted to the Official Press Bureau.
The Press Bureau retained the message for about three hours before returning it. When it again reached the office of the 'Times' certain passages, containing references to the correspondent's route, had been deleted. Other passages and embellishments, however, had been added by the head of the Press Bureau, who further conveyed an intimation that, in its new form, the dispatch was approved for publication.
In these circumstances the editorial staff of the 'Times,' who were astonished at the decision of the Press Bureau and had made no arrangements for publishing the message, came, not unnaturally, to the conclusion that it was the wish of the Government that it should appear.
§ The Prime Minister was very severe, and rightly so. I think the House regretted that a statement of a character which did cause so much intense feeling and agony to thousands of people in this country yesterday should have been published. A grave responsibility rests, however, on the Press Bureau. It is in connection with the whole conduct of this Bureau that I wish to speak to-day. I was unable to deal with the matter on Friday, because my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith) had to go back to the Bureau, and could not remain in the House. I believe I was the first person in this House to suggest that a Bureau should be established. At the commencement of the War we had a series of statements made in the Press which caused unnecessary feeling to be engendered, and therefore when the Government announced that it was their 455 intention to establish a Press Bureau it gave satisfaction to everyone in the country.
§ I first take exception to the constitution of the Bureau. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Walton Division, as the House is aware, has been appointed manager of this Bureau, and his brother the Member for Warrington (Mr. Harold Smith) has been appointed the secretary, he being appointed, I presume, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division. I have letters from newspaper editors who complain that the hon. Member for Warrington acts more like one of the Kaiser's staff officers in his dealings with the Press. I do not think the Government appreciates the country's feelings in reference to this matter. The Prime Minister has said that it is his intention to go into the country to speak to the people and to let them know the danger this country is in, and that it is the duty of every man who is able to take up arms for his country at this time. I can assure my right hon. Friend that he could do no more great service towards accomplishing that end than if he at once took steps to put this Bureau in a position which would enable the country to take a human interest in what goes on.
§ All human interest is entirely vanished from the statements which have appeared in the Press. The human element does not appear. The Government, I think, ought to have appointed a Minister in charge of this Bureau. If it is necessary for the Prime Minister to go about the country speaking of the necessity of obtaining recruits, why should there be this action of the Government in silencing information? It is killing recruiting in the country. I do not think my right hon. Friend has been in the country, and I do not think he knows the feeling in many districts where the people have no idea of the seriousness of the position which has arisen. That, at all events, is the opinion we hear stated by editors in all the country Press. I have here numerous quotations, with which I do not wish to trouble the House, stating the views of editors of country papers, and how this want of information is killing recruiting. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!" and "No!"] 456 It may not be so in the districts of which my hon. Friend has knowledge, but it is so in many districts. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that it is being an injury to recruiting. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That may be the opinion of hon. Members, and they are entitled to hold that view, but my view, and the view of a large section of the Press—the Press, after all, are not all fools—is that recruiting is suffering.
§ I do not think it is necessary, and I do not wish to make any attack on the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division. He has done his best in a very difficult position. He found himself without any staff. I believe he has 150 clerks in his Department who are reading through all the mass of literature submitted to him. He, in a most patriotic manner, came forward and offered his services to the Government, and I am sure that the Government appreciate the work he has done. The editor of a large daily paper in London told me that he had to thank the right hon. Gentleman for much of the information he had been able to get. The real fact of the position is that we have to-day at the War Office a gentleman who has the full confidence of the country, Lord Kitchener, but who, at all events, is not in touch with our Parliamentary institutions. The idea of Lord Kitchener is that all information should be held back from the public. Lord Kitchener may be a great soldier, but he does not understand our Parliamentary institutions, and that the human element is, after all, what this country desires, and is the determining factor in all these matters. This feeling of the "mailed fist," as I may term it, appears to prevail very extensively. All sections seem to think that all power to-day should be with the military authorities. Everybody who has any military command appears to think that the Civil power must be subordinate to the military power. I hold the view very strongly that the Civil power must always be the predominant power, and it was for that reason that a good many of us considered the appointment of a soldier to the War Office was undesirable. Now let me proceed with the work of the Bureau.
§ The Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, in reply to a supplementary 457 question which I asked, said he believed it was incorrect that accounts had appeared in the Continental papers, giving information regarding our troops which had not been allowed to appear in the Press of this country. Now in the Paris edition of the "New York Herald" of 10th August, it was stated that British troops from this country had arrived in France. On the 12th, I was attending a Departmental Committee of the Home Office, and I there gave to the Home Secretary a copy of a paper that I had that morning purchased at Charing Cross Railway Station, and I asked him to submit it to the Cabinet with a view of showing what information was appearing in Continental papers. The official announcement that British troops had been sent to France was made in the "New York Herald" on the 8th August. The arrival of General French in Paris occurred on the 15th August; yet no announcement was made in this country until the 18th August that British troops had been sent. Everyone in this House and in the country knows that communications are open daily between this country and Flushing. Everyone knows, too, that numerous statements have been made in this House with reference to the Expeditionary Force, and of how many divisions it is composed. I am not going to mention how many divisions have been sent, or how many remain to be sent, but while the ports are open as they are for people to travel backwards and forwards to Holland, and for Hollanders and Americans, and subjects of all nationalities, to pass through Holland to Germany, it is idle to suppose that large bodies of troops can be moved abroad from this country without its being perfectly well known to the Germans that it is being done. Colonel Von Bernhardi, of the German Staff, has pointed out in his great book on "Germany and the Next War," that the central organisation of the Army must be determined in the field from one centre, at which will be the Commander-in-Chief, and it is necessary that he should have the means of communicating rapidly with all sections of his army. He therefore has numerous cables, telephones, and even wireless telegraphy. It must be known directly to the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army at any time when an attack 458 is being made. He must know where it is being made. Yet in our Press all mention of piaces where such attacks are made is erased by the Press Censor, and, although the troops may have been attacked on a particular day at a particular place, and it is well known by the Germans, the fact is not allowed to be mentioned in our Press. Why should that be so? I want to give a few examples of what I have termed the "mailed fist" of the Bureau. On 10th August the "Daily Chronicle" submitted to the Censor a report from their special correspondent at Yarmouth regarding the splendid response made to an appeal for volunteers among local mariners to sweep the sea for mines. Here was a work of great danger, a magnificent work silently performed, and yet the public were not allowed even to know that these mariners were prepared to undertake it. The report was excised by the Censor. For what reason?
§ Again the "Daily Chronicle" on 17th August received a long story from South Shields relating to the sinking of trawlers. The words "South Shields" were struck out; yet they appeared in five other London papers. I have a letter from the editor of the paper at South Shields, saying that when he was dealing with this question the hon. Member for Warrington treated him in what he considered a highly dictatorial manner, and one entirely contrary to the spirit in which the Press Bureau should be run. I have here a censored message to the effect that "an engagement took place between — and— on —. The French and British drove the Germans back with heavy loss." These blanks could be perfectly well filled in by the German Commander-in-Chief, because necessarily, in the conduct of this campaign, every single step that is taken is well known to the central administration. I have another instance, the overhauling of the "Galician." A message with regard to that was submitted to the Censor on 25th August, it was passed after many delays on the 27th, but almost immediately afterwards the Censor cancelled his assent. Nevertheless the report appeared in the "Times," the "Daily Mail," and other papers.
459§ The American papers are feeling very strongly on this question, and rightly so. The Declaration of War was allowed to be used by one New York journal, while the Associated Press, which represents 9,000 American and Canadian papers, had the information withheld from it. What was the necessity for hanging up information of that kind? What good did the Bureau imagine could be done by keeping our own subjects in Canada in ignorance of the news? Why was it given to one paper, and one paper only? Then, again, with regard to the Fall of Namur. That was not permitted to be sent by the Associated Press, or to any American papers except two, one of which receives the German official messages, while the other is usually anti-British. I have many other instances, but I will not keep the House much longer.
§ I will come to the question of remedies. I would urge on the Prime Minister that a Cabinet Minister should take charge of this Department. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division, with every desire to do all he can, necessarily sitting on the benches opposite cannot have the authority of a Cabinet Minister, either with the War Office or with the Admiralty. I would suggest, too, that on the Committee there should be at least three trained journalists. Trained journalists can very readily separate the wheat from the chaff. No one knows that better than the Prime Minister—
§ The PRIME MINISTERHear, hear.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMAnd in a very few moments a trained journalist would be able to point out to the Censor what is required by the public and what is not required by it. Neither the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division nor the Prime Minister would surely claim to know what the public want in this respect!
§ The PRIME MINISTERResponsibility for the Press Bureau does not fall within the administrative sphere of any Cabinet Minister, and my colleagues at this moment are so fully occupied that I should be very sorry to add to the labours of any one of them.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMBut I think the matter is sufficiently serious to justify our 460 asking that a Cabinet Minister should take charge of this Department, and I say that it is also essential you should have trained journalists on this Committee. A trained journalist knows what the public wants. Members of this House who have had no experience in journalism cannot say what the public require, and surely a trained journalist could do this work better than any man who, however good he may be, is simply groping in the dark in this matter. I would also suggest that there should be on this Committee Lord Roberts, representing the military side, and the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford), representing the Admiralty. Both of these Noble Lords have held the highest commands in the country, and, acting in conjunction with a Minister of the Crown, and with trained journalists, they would constitute a Bureau in which the public could have confidence—that is, if we are to have a Press Bureau at all, and that, I am now fully convinced, has been a mistake. But, if you are going to have a Press Bureau, you must have one which will enjoy the confidence of the country, and the present Bureau does not do that. This is not a war waged by an autocracy. It is a war waged by the democracy, and the democracy claim that they shall not be kept perpetually in ignorance of what is going on. The "Times," in its article yesterday, said, very properly:—
The time is past when a great, free and enlightened democracy can go to war in the dark.That must be the feeling of a great majority of the people of this country. The whole of the Press unanimously share that view. I hope hon. Members will take it from me, and will not dissent from the statement, that it is the unanimous feeling of the Press that recruiting is being damaged. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I say the Press is unanimous on that point. I propose to give one quotation from the "Westminster Gazette." [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"] I am not going to divide, and you may shout as much as you like. I want to read this very able passage from the "Westminster Gazette"—The Press Bureau defends itself this morning for permitting the publication of messages which disturb the public mind and present the course of events in a false perspective, by reminding us that its duties are merely to prevent the giving away of military information which may be useful to the enemy. Needless to say, we do not wish the lines of censorship to be drawn any tighter than is absolutely necessary; and we do 461 not regard the non-intervention of the Censor as affording the least excuse for journalists who yield to panic and sensationalism. But it is well to remember that the veto on correspondents at the front throws us back on stories obtained at second or third hand by correspondents not at the front, and likely to be coloured and exaggerated in passing from mouth to mouth. If the veto on correspondents at the front is to be maintained, we submit that it is the duty of the Press Bureau to keep the newspapers informed of the true state of facts at the front (of which in the circumstances it must be in sole possession) and to check the publication of messages which are bound to cause a false and painful impression.Nobody can dissent from that view. I hope the Prime Minister will in this matter see if he can do something to meet what, after all, is the strong feeling of the Press throughout the country. There is another matter to which I wish to refer. I live at Shorncliffe, where troops arrived back wounded from the front on Saturday. I think it is my duty to bring to the attention of the House facts relating to the way in which the conduct of the War is being carried on, but I am not going to say anything in any way detrimental in the smallest degree to the interests of my country. Wounded men are making statements which show the necessity of having the fullest light on the conduct of the War. We had all the mismanagement of the Crimean War which was brought to light by Kinglake. There are men lying to-day in Shorncliffe Hospital who tell this tale. I am only going to deal with the men that were wounded. When they were wounded they were placed in trains, by chance or otherwise, which took days and days to reach this country. They had no food whatever supplied to them during the three days' journey in France in trains, except apples or food which they got at station sides. When these soldiers arrived at Folkestone there was not even the Red Cross or any other organisation to dress the wounds of these men, many of whom had kept their boots on for days. Septic poisoning— [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"]
§ Mr. HAMAR GREENWOODThat will not help recruiting.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMDoes the hon. Member who is supposed to represent a democratic constituency suppose that it is in the interests of recruiting that this mismanagement should not be known? The hon. Member does not seem to know that the people of this country want the truth, the whole truth, and are not afraid to be told the whole truth.
§ Mr. HAMAR GREENWOODYou are not the man to speak it!
§ Sir A. MARKHAMIf I am not the man, I do not know by what right he is. I fail to understand that interruption. I am merely saying that steps ought to be taken. On the arrival of these men at Boulogne there was no organisation to dress their wounds or any first-aid, and even when they arrived at Folkestone they were put down on the pier there, and there was no one to meet them. Is that what the hon. Member wants?
§ Mr. HAMAR GREENWOODNo, it is not.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMI know it is not.
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant)I would suggest to my hon. Friend that these facts be brought to the War Office—if they be facts—and I take leave, if I may, to doubt them. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that they may not be facts, and that they are very much exaggerated. I should like to inform the House that there is a large base hospital at Folkestone, and it is very improbable that there should be no Red Cross assistants there.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMThat is not what I said. What I said was that when these men arrived at Folkestone there was no intimation that they were coming, that no preparation had been made for them, nor to meet the boat. Is that what is going to happen with the Press Censorship? It happened that Colonel Wilson, of the Medical Corps at Folkestone, by good chance went down to meet the boat, but there were only two stretchers when this boat arrived. I am not going to refer to other cases to show the necessity of the Press Censorship being abolished. Are we not going to allow the people of this country to have the truth? When all the mismanagement occurred in the Crimean War, there was no rapid communication between this country and the Crimea. I will follow the wish of my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for War, and will give to him a number of cases which I may not mention to the House. I have only given to the House one case of men being without food and being in the position of net receiving first-aid, and 463 what I consider faulty management on the part of the War Office. It is not easy for the Press Bureau and those responsible to shelter themselves behind the plea that they are not responsible for what is given to them. I have already said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division has done his best in a very difficult position, with this immense mass of information coming forward, to give the public the best he is allowed to give them. What I claim is that the public are entitled to the fullest possible information which is not detrimental to the public interest. It is perfectly possible for men of common sense to be able to give to the public a very different statement of the conduct of the War from that we have had up to the present time.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONI am not very willing to speak, but as the whole question of the Press Censorship and the Press Bureau has been raised by the hon. Baronet (Sir A. Markham), I hope the House will excuse me if I say a few words about it. I consider that the attack that has been made upon my right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. F. E. Smith), who is the head of the Bureau, is most unfair and is very ill-informed, and if the House wanted proof of it I would suggest that the last sentences of the hon. Baronet would be sufficient. How on earth could the Press Bureau be responsible for any faults in first-aid, or attending to the wounded, in the course of this tremendous struggle we have been waging against overwhelming odds, and in which the British Army has already covered itself with glory!
§ Sir A. MARKHAMI never said it was responsible.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONI certainly understood the hon. Baronet to say that this was part of the fault of the Press Bureau. Whether that is so or not, I can tell the hon. Baronet that my right hon. Friend has been battling with zeal, energy and tact against overwhelming difficulties and obstructions. In the first place, as we have so often learned in British history, there was no preparation whatever made for the supply of organised news by the Government. It is thought that the problem might be dealt with on the old 464 principle of solvitur ambulando, and that some method would be found of doing it, but no method had been provided. Two years ago a Committee was appointed, on which the newspaper Press was represented as well as the War Office and the Admiralty, but their deliberations merely went to the extent of a voluntary self-control by newspapers of the publication of news in times of national emergency. I am quite well aware that an Act has been recently passed giving the Government greater power, but it did not go beyond that. When the War broke out it was believed and intended that the newspaper Press should be represented at the front by authorised correspondents, who would be under proper censorship. The whole of that was prepared, and I do not hesitate to say that it was not the fault of my right hon. Friend, nor of the Secretary for War, that those correspondents did not go to the front—it was in deference to the protests of our Allies. If that is so, what responsibility falls upon either the Secretary for War or my right hon. Friend? Personally, I have expressed the opinion privately, and I now must express it publicly, that it was a great misfortune that expert writers were not allowed under proper supervision to accompany the Army in the field. But it was not the fault of the British Government. Why I say it is that I foresaw what has happened—that rumour would take the place of narrative of fact, and that every petty incident as told by a private soldier or a non-commissioned officer who is, no doubt, speaking the truth as he saw it—but he could only see a very limited part over a narrow area—would be taken as an accurate account of what was happening in this terrible and long-drawn battle. That has happened, but it is not the fault of my right hon. Friend that those correspondents were not there.
8.0 P.M.
I go further, and I say that when the Press Bureau was formed and organised it was not intended that it should take upon itself the supply of full narratives of events to the public. The idea was merely that a censorship should be exercised upon what was to appear or not to appear in the daily and evening Press, and that bulletins or a bare recital of orders and facts should be issued through the Bureau in the ordinary course. Therefore 465 my right hon. Friend was suddenly called upon to organise a new service for which he had no adequate staff, and very little opportunity of forming one. I consider that he has manfully struggled with immense difficulties, and that, on the whole, if the public has had a certain amount of light thrown by the official dispatches, it has been largely because he has insisted upon this being done as far as he could. There is another point. The whole of the censorship has not been directly under his control. When the hon. Baronet complains that the issue of cablegrams from this country has been seriously and foolishly interfered with, especially in regard to the service to the United States, perhaps he does not know that the staff of Press Censors at the General Post Office is not under the control of the Press Bureau, but is quite independent. Unfortunately, as always happens in time of War, you cannot expect the best of your officers to be appointed to this work. All these gentlemen have meant well, but if they had had, as has been pointed out in this House, a training which would enable them to deal quickly with news, it would have been better. But they have not had the training which enables them to appreciate what should be given to the public. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) raised this question before on the Adjournment of the House, and since he did so there has been a marked improvement. I am far from saying that the system is adequate, still less that it is perfect, but I do say that as it has had to be improvised these faults were bound to occur, and I believe, honestly, that everything the Press Bureau can do to remedy it is being done at the present moment. I am sure there has been an improvement, and I believe the House may look forward to a better and fuller supply in the future. It is impossible that they should be able to remedy the want of expert correspondents at the front able to give a full and impartial account. That is due to circumstances over which they have no control.
I am bound to say also that whilst, of course, the Press Bureau has been hardly tried, so also has been the newspaper Press itself. They have been inundated with stories coming from all quarters, 466 which was bound to be the case when they had no authorised and authoritative correspondents, giving various and partial accounts of what had happened, and they have had to pick and choose, and perhaps the very existence of the Press Bureau has made them a little less careful than they would otherwise have been. Sending to the Press Bureau, they imagined when they obtained permission to publish their duty was discharged. They were the functus officio in that way. The Press Bureau has had an avalanche of letters and documents of all sorts every night, and if mistakes have been made I think the House ought to feel rather sorry than angry that that has been the case. My right hon. Friend did not set up the system. It was a thankless task, and I consider that he has put both the House and the country under a great obligation.
As to the fact of news being doled out, so to speak, in small and insufficient quantities, perhaps it was inevitable under the circumstances. We were under the force majeure of public opinion abroad, and not here. I regret it, but I do not think it has had the serious effect the hon. Baronet (Sir A. Markham) imagined, and I believe that now the public is realising the conditions under which the Press and the Press Bureau work, they will do all they can to co-operate in keeping up the national spirit under the great trial to which they are now exposed. The Press itself has had the testimony of Lord Kitchener in the House of Lords and the Prime Minister here, that on the whole it has discharged its duty with a great sense of responsibility and self-control. Therefore I do not ask consideration for the Press, but I ask consideration for the Press Bureau, and although I should not have wished to see the system established on its present lines, as it is neither the fault of our Government nor of those who have been appointed to do this duty, I think the House might be well advised in not attaching too much importance to these complaints of detail which we receive every day and transmit, and try to have remedied, and for which the remedy will be provided by experience in what is essentially empirical and transitory, and may result in a better system being set up in case—which Heaven forbid!—we are exposed to these terrible trials in the future.
§ Mr. PIRIE(indistinctly heard) The hon. Baronet (Sir A. Markham) may count on one thing to-morrow—plenty of columns to support his attack. I am glad to think he has been answered so well and thoroughly by a man who is a greater expert than I can pretend to be. I entirely echo what has fallen from the hon. Member (Mr. Harry Lawson) in his description of the difficulties and the way in which they have been overcome, and I think that, with the modification the Prime Minister hinted at in the future, we may rest assured that we shall have every legitimate demand for information supplied. I think this House has to remember that war is not waged for the benefit of the Press. It has also to remember and to discount some of the unfortunate statements, even in the last few days, when it has been stated in this House that the public abroad get more information than the public in this country. That is not the case. If they saw the small half-sheet, which is all that the French public at present get, and the meagre telegrams, they would realise how well off we are in this country. Not only that, but abroad you have a law, which the welfare of this great city might require to have enacted very soon, that no newspaper shall come out more than three times in a day. That should be quite sufficient to gratify the national wish, but the more it is gratified, the more it demands. It would be quite sufficient for the public information if they got three editions in the day, at the most—in the morning, in the middle of the day, and in the evening. Perhaps before long we may come to that. The hon. Baronet spoke about democracy and autocracy, and said this was a democratic war. I have never known a war successfully waged to be a democratic war, because if a war is to be successful it must be managed by an autocrat. The real power in this country at present is centred in the War Office, and we have to submit to it till we get out of this crisis. Members of Parliament have to learn to take a second or a third place for a short time. As regards recruiting, I was happy to see today a statement that Lord Kitchener is highly satisfied with the success which has attended his efforts. I deny that the people of this country are failing to answer legitimate demands from them.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMmade an observation which was not heard in the Reporters' Gallery.
§ Mr. PIRIEI read it in the Press, anyhow. Even if I had seen them I should be the last to bring forward a solitary instance. I will just instance the possible danger of indiscretion in the Press by reminding the House of what took place in the last great European War in which France was engaged in 1870. It was newspaper indiscretion in the "Soir"' and the "Temps" that enabled the German authorities to learn of the proposed retreat to Sedan—one of the greatest military catastrophes. I cannot even share the views of the hon. Member (Mr. Harry Lawson), who regretted the absence of war correspondents. I think we shall be perfectly well served in every way, and I hope the present system will continue, with the improvements and modifications that the Prime Minister promised.
§ Mr. T. P. O'CONNORI have raised this question of the censorship before, and have had several communications between the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith), and can testify to the courtesy and promptitude with which he received every suggestion which was made to him. I believe he has adopted already one of the suggestions which I made to him, namely, that the censors should have the assistance of trained journalists. Such faults as there are in the Press Bureau are not, I am sure, due to the right hon. Gentleman, and such improvements as have been made are due to him, and it would be very unfair, having had these relations with him, that I should not bear testimony to the excellent way in which he has performed his functions.
§ Mr. PETOI have felt very strongly, as no doubt many other hon. Members have done, the indignation with which I read these articles in the "Times" yesterday, and particularly in the night edition, printed alongside the official version of what had occurred, which seemed rather a belated statement, considering the time it was printed. I felt indignation at seeing in a newspaper, particularly a newspaper like the "Times," in large black print, a headline such as this: "Broken British Regiments," and then, a little smaller, "Untarnished Honour of Our Troops." 469 As if anyone in this country required the assurance of the "Times" that the honour of our troops was untarnished at the present time. It is most unfortunate that an article such as this should have been printed. At the time the Press Bureau was established we were promised, by the First Lord of the Admiralty—I think his words were "a steady stream of reliable information." It was felt throughout the country that it was a somewhat novel experiment for a country such as ours to be engaged in war and have no direct information from competent and experienced Press correspondents at the front, but we were told we were to have a steady stream of reliable information. I should be very glad if the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) will give to the House the reasons why these particular articles were allowed to be published, and if he can give us any information as to why the stream has been so very restricted and so very far the reverse of steady. I have no doubt, so far as we have had it, it has been reliable, but in the other two things which were promised it certainly has been woefully deficient.
My other reason for mentioning this matter is that there are a great many people, I believe, still so great was their alarm on reading these articles in the "Times" yesterday, who do not feel fully confident as to whether the truth is contained in these stories, second or third hand, as the hon. Member (Mr. Harry Lawson) has indicated, gathered from sources which could not possibly give any kind of picture of really what has happened, or whether the authoritative statement of the Commander-in-Chief is to be accepted and if it is not to be regarded as a somewhat whitewashed and emasculated edition of what really represents the truth. Therefore I hope we shall have from the right hon. Gentleman a statement, not only of what his reasons were for allowing these statements to be printed in the Press, but an assurance which will reassure the public that these articles, of which we complain, really do not represent the true state of affairs at all. I notice this House has passed two measures for the defence of the Realm. The second, which received the Royal Assent to-day, gives the authorities power to try by 470 court-martial persons who spread reports calculated to promote disaffection or alarm among His Majesty's subjects, and it seems to me certainly from the effect I have found, not only among comparatively humble people, but among people who are well read and educated and so forth, that this appears to be precisely the sort of thing which is referred to by this Defence Act Number 2, which specifically states that this is an offence punishable by court-martial. I would ask the Home Secretary to consider when the House is not sitting whether that particular form of penalty is really appropriate, and whether it would not be wise to take power during the currency of the War to suppress altogether the publication and sale of any newspaper which prints articles at all comparable to those which created such a feeling of anxiety and alarm wherever read yesterday. It is not within my knowledge or competence to praise or to blame the Press Bureau, but I do wish to say that I entirely dissociate myself from the speech of the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham). So far as I am capable of forming an opinion, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mile End (Mr. Harry Lawson) in regard to the duties undertaken by the hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith). His work is an arduous and difficult one, and he ought to have the sympathy of the House. I am sure that he has the sympathy of the House, and that he will have the sympathy of the country when he makes his statement this evening. I hope he will be able to tell us that the stream of information which will pass through his Bureau will be a little more steady and full than it has been in the past.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMI thought the hon. Member was satisfied.
§ Mr. PETOI did not say I was satisfied with the volume of information received. On the contrary, I said exactly the opposite. I do hope that in future it will be a little more in accordance with what the First Lord of the Admiralty promised us. I think it will be for the advantage of the country if it is, and particularly it-will tend to render it impossible for any responsible journal in future to publish 471 tittle-tattle picked up far from the fighting line which can represent by no possible means what is taking place at the front, or the effect of it.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSI do not wish to criticise the hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division. I am perfectly certain that he has done all that was possible for him to do in order to see that the conduct of his Department was all that could be expected of it. I desire to raise what seems to me a bigger question than the mere question whether the Press Bureau is satisfactory or not, and that is the question whether the whole system of publicity that obtains at present is a right one or not. I sincerely believe that as long as the present system is in existence we shall have repetitions of that awful and mischievous business from which we all suffered yesterday. If you try to suppress news in a free country—I am not saying that the right hon. Gentleman has done that; I blame the Government for it—then the public will get some sort of news—unreliable news if they cannot get trustworthy news. The only criticism I would address to the Press Bureau is that they have been rather too anxious in censoring some of the messages sent out, and perhaps they have not been allowed to have a free hand in supplying news. For instance, what was to prevent the publication of the official news which was published yesterday? What was to prevent it being published on Thursday, Friday or Saturday? Ever since Wednesday our troops at the front were not molested at all, except one Cavalry regiment. If that was so, why was not the country told at the first possible moment of the issue of the glorious fight between our men and the enemy? Military necessity cannot be pleaded. The public, after all, are intensely interested in this matter. They have to suffer for it, and to pay for it in treasure and unemployment. Why should not the public be told exactly, so far as possible, what goes on at the front? When a battle has been fought and when a position has been evacuated, the enemy knows as well as the Censor what has happened. When once a battle has been fought, and when once a position has been evacuated by troops, no harm can be done by publishing the fact. [An HON. 472 MEMBER: "How do you know?"] I can understand that military necessity should compel the Censor not to publish that a retreat had been made to a certain place or to certain places. The public are quite content not to know where the troops have retreated to, but once a battle has been fought at Charleroi, or anywhere else, there is no reason why the Press should not give the information to the public.
I may ask another question. It is stated—I do not know whether it be true—that two regiments were very severely cut up, and it is common knowledge, every Member of the House knows, what are the names of the two regiments which are mentioned as having been engaged in that encounter, and yet those two names have always been censored and kept out of every newspaper that has published the report. If the fact that two regiments have been severely cut up is published at all, why should the further fact that these regiments are so-and-so be eliminated? I fail to see why that is so. I did not rise merely to make a criticism on these points. The real point I wish to make is that until and unless the Government allow Press correspondents who have had long experience, who are in responsible posts, and whose very positions depend upon the reliability and the trustworthiness of the news they send from the front—until and unless the Government allow Press correspondents to go to the front, you will have recurrences of the thing which alarmed the country so much yesterday. I quite agree that even the most experienced war correspondent should not be allowed to send uncensored messages to their papers, but everybody knows that the censorship will be at work at headquarters at the front. It would be easy for those messages to be sent, and I appeal to the Government, in a free and liberal country like this, not to allow any counsels to deflect them from the old time-honoured policy of this country of taking the people into their confidence as much as possible and making known all the facts that can be made known without damage to the military situation.
My hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Pirie) spoke of the alleged fact—I do not know whether it is true or not—that in 1870 the retreat of MacMahon was made known to the Germans by two Paris newspapers. Of course those are things that ought not to 473 be allowed to be published. They ought to be severely censored. I hope that the censorship will see to it that no news of that sort which may possibly help the enemy should be made known. But may I put in a plea for the splendid record of the old war correspondents who have done so much for the English Army in the past? I cannot see any reasons for, and I never heard a word uttered in this House or outside of it to justify, the absence of Press correspondents from the front. If the glorious traditions of our Army are to be maintained, then the public must get to know, not through any official documents, but in the lurid, if you like in the yellow, and rhetorical descriptions given by correspondents from the front, what really has occurred. These men can be trusted, if the Government will trust them, not to emulate the sad example from the effects of which we all suffered yesterday on reading the "Times."
§ Mr. RUSSELL REAI do not rise to criticise the hon. and learned Gentleman who has charge of the Press Bureau, or to criticise the action of the Press Bureau. I have confidence in those who have control of it, but there are some suggestions which they might consider. There is a certain lack in their descriptions. There is a certain lack of experience in their criticisms, and especially in their excisions, and the charge of this duty seems to be committed to individuals who have not the slightest knowledge of the subject upon which they have to exercise their critical facilities. I would like to give an example of what occurred in my own district. A newspaper, which is celebrated for the extent and exactness of its maritime intelligence, and its news of certain things which affect the shipping community, learned that trawlers had gone out to sea and had come back. Meanwhile the sea was sown with mines by Germans, and some ships were blown up, and the fact that these ships were blown up was reported in the newspapers. The newspaper to which I allude not only published the fact that the ships were blown up, but published the exact position of these mines, and the places where the ships had been blown up. It subsequently received the thanks of the local authorities of the district, and was asked by the local Custom House people to continue giving 474 information of this kind. The Custom House people even supplied it with information, and it gave next day further information of the same kind. Then the Press Bureau interposed and sent a message saying that when a newspaper is publishing the sinking of trading vessels or trawlers by the enemy's mines, not a word as to areas or distances should be given. Was anything more absurd ever imagined? What benefit could it be to the enemy to be told where they had laid their own mines, and what benefit would it be to German ships in their own ports to know where English ships would run the risk of going on a mine? But the information was of value to English ships, and it seems to me that it was not only contrary to public interests, but it was contrary to the desire and instructions of another Government Department to keep it back; and when this newspaper went on to describe certain routes and sections of the North Sea which might be crossed in safety, the editor was called up by telephone, and threatened by a man who called himself the "local Admiralty Censor."
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHThere is no such official.
§ Mr. RUSSELL REAI am glad to be told so, because it may help me to reassure the people who are concerned.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHThere is no such official, and the editor of the "South Shields Gazette," who made the complaint in person, was assured by letter that there was no such official, and that any person who represented himself as such was not in any sense representing the Admiralty.
§ Mr. RUSSELL REAAs far as I see, that explanation, which I did not expect, is entirely satisfactory, but that does not dispose of the other criticism of the Department to which I have referred. The interposition of the Department at the time was vexatious and arbitrary, and in this case it was actually contrary to public policy, and mischievous. I give this case to the right hon. Gentleman for his own information, so that he may correct the mistakes which are inevitable in a Department which is already extensive, and which is very new and very inexperienced.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI think there has been a great deal of criticism to-night which is a little bit out of proportion. We are fighting for our lives, and the question—and I say it in the presence of a very well known newspaper proprietor—whether a particular statement is or is not published in the Press, is really infinitely small in proportion. The hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) gave an illustration of the kind of thing that he thinks ought to be published. If two regiments are cut up he thinks that the names of the regiments ought to be given. Until there is some possibility of publishing a casualty list, I can conceive of nothing more cruel. It may be that a casualty list is inevitably delayed, not owing to the fault of my right hon. Friend, but owing to the very exceptional circumstances prevailing at the front. But it is quite clear that information of the kind is exactly the kind of thing whose publication the Press Bureau exists to prevent. In the same way the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said that nothing could be more useful than to publish the exact situation of the mines which blew up a particular ship. I am not going to expatiate on the reasons for not publishing it.
Even I, who have no knowledge of military or naval matters whatever, can conceive many reasons why it is very undesirable indeed to publish the exact locality in which a particular mine has been discovered. I should think that that is a matter which emphatically must be left to the discretion of great experts at the Admiralty. And if they have decided that information ought not to be given to the public it does seem ludicrous for us, sitting comfortably here, if we have any imagination, to make any comparison between our situation and that of the soldiers and sailors who are actually fighting our battle. It is ridiculous for us to make complaints of this description. I regret, with my hon. Friend (Mr. Peto), the publication in the "Times" yesterday of that alarmist article, but I absolutely dissociate myself from all the criticisms which were made on my right hon. Friend by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham). My right hon. Friend has taken this extremely onerous and disagreeable 476 position from pure patriotism, and it is very unfortunate that any suggestions should be made. I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend discharges this duty, as indeed we have been told by the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Harry Lawson), and the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) with his usual ability and tact, and I for one have absolute confidence that he will continue to do so.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMI never said that he had not done so.
§ Mr. HOGGEMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman, before he replies, whether he will explain one paragraph which appears in the "Times" account that there is a distinction in regard to the men at the front who are sending information? There is this sentence:—
The car has been challenged and stopped perhaps above a hundred times. But the papers that we carried have passed us everywhere.I want to know how many of our Press people attached to well-known papers are in possession of equal facilities. May I say that of all the correspondents I know, none has more accurately described our forces than the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith), who has always referred to them as British troops, and Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen can only be accurately described as British.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTI want to ask, Sir, whether it is your intention to wind up the discussion on this particular question, because there are several hon. Members who wish to offer observations on the subject before the right hon. Gentleman replies?
The CHAIRMANI am not winding up the Debate, but it is in the discretion of the Chairman, when a number of hon. Members rise, to call upon one, and I thought that the time had arrived when the right hon. Gentleman should make some reply.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHNothing could be further from my wish than that any Members of the House who have still observations to make should be precluded from the opportunity of doing so.
§ Mr. SHERWELLWe propose to go straight on.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHMy rising at this stage of the Debate is simply occasioned by the information conveyed to me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a statement to make on another subject, which must take some considerable time. Under those circumstances I have risen to deal, so far as I can, with the general criticisms that have been made, and also with the different points brought forward by various speakers. I hope the House will think it reasonable if I explain at the outset, in reference to some criticism which has been made on the constitution of the Bureau, that certainly I never sought the office which I hold, and which I was not so foolish as not to be well aware would mean many antagonisms, much invidiousness, and much that would involve every day the expenditure of almost more hours than I have ever worked in the course of a somewhat busy life. I can only address myself to the duties of the office, and they have been very arduous, in the attempt to do the best I can to administer and carry out those duties which have been thrown upon me by those who asked me to perform them. Let me, in the first place, give the House, if I may, an indication of what the general character of those difficulties has been. There was not in existence at the time the War broke out any coercive machinery of any kind by which the publication in the Press of matter injurious to the public service could be prevented. When it was anticipated that it might be desirable that some greater discretion should be shown in the Press in dealing with certain public matters than was likely to follow from the absence of control, a Committee was created, and on that Committee there sat the representatives of the great newspapers of the country, and also representatives of the War Office and Admiralty. Discussions took place from time to time, and indications were given by the representatives of the War Office or the Admiralty respectively, of the matters winch, having regard to considerations of public convenience and interest, it was not thought desirable that the Press should deal with. That system continued until the outbreak of the War.
With the outbreak of War it was realised—I think rightly realised—that at any rate the system was loose, and could not be a system which would control the Press in 478 time of War. Whether a more satisfactory system could have been evolved—and this is the point of my observations, and I shall have a word or two to say later about specific suggestions made in this respect—I will not discuss at this moment, but I think everybody will agree that it became clear on the outbreak of War that some new method of control of the Press must be devised, and that those having the control must meet regularly and must have a trained staff. Let me clear away one initial cause of confusion. Up to the present time the censorship in this country has been dual, and the duality of the system has been responsible for a great deal of the criticism which has been made, and a great deal of the undoubted inequality of treatment. I will, if I may, give the House an explanation and illustration. All the cable censorship in this country, and both in this country and out of this country, has not up to the present been done by the Press Bureau. The Press Bureau has had no responsibility for what has been done up to the present. The House will be aware that ail the Press cables go out of the country from different offices. I daresay there are some ten or twelve offices from which outgoing Press cables are delivered. It is, of course, necessary that at every one of those offices there should be a trained band of censors, ready at every moment of the day and night to examine the Press cables which are sent abroad and to form a judgment on their propriety or impropriety. That means an enormous staff, of coarse; it means a staff of some eighty or ninety censors. These censors, in the main, I believe up to the present day, have consisted of military men. It is obvious that that staff, numerically, is a very considerable one.
The work they are doing is difficult and novel. It is impossible to suppose that eighty or ninety men working on standards which are not always the same, should invariably reach the same conclusion, and this is the explanation of a great many of the inequalities of which undoubtedly complaints have been made in the course of the last few days. I ought to make it quite clear in regard to the complaints about the decisions of the Press Censors that while I have investigated those complaints and sent them 479 to the proper quarters, I have had no opportunity in any way of supervising or guiding the conduct of those who discharge those duties. The Press have been subjected to the difficulties and annoyance that they were subjected to a double censorship. In other words, they were not even safe if a message had been passed by the Military Censor. Supposing, as an illustration, a news association had a message which was censored, and was then passed on to the Press, it had to be censored. Obviously, that is an inconvenient system. I cannot say at the present time that inconvenience has been expelled from the system adopted, but I hope that this week a very great advance has been taken in that direction. An attempt has been made to co-ordinate the censorship in two ways.
In the first place, the Press cables are henceforward to be distinguished in their treatment from all other cables. In other words, a central bureau is established in London from which all Press cables go. That makes it possible to require a much smaller staff, some twenty censors, who, by means of a system of shifts, will always be present at the Central Telegraph Office to deal with those outgoing cables. It is proposed that the direction and control and responsibility for those twenty censors, who are engaged doing this work under conditions which are so much more centralised, shall be jointly distributed between Colonel Caldwell, of the War Office, and myself, and that we shall be jointly responsible, as far as anyone can be responsible, for decisions taken by different men. It is hoped by this means, in the course of the next few days, a plan may be evolved, and although it is idle to say that it will altogether do away with the necessity of having anything censored twice, once by cable censors and once by Press censors, and although I cannot say such a solution has been completely attained up to the present, I believe it may be possible to devise such a scheme. I know from the experience I have had and from various responsible members of the Press that if such a scheme could be evolved it would be received with the greatest possible satisfaction by those sending cables and by those receiving them. So much for that part of the general observations I have to make.
480 I come to another point which has been dealt with by various speakers, and which is of some considerable importance. I said that the machinery had not existed in this country for a considerable period by which a censorship of this kind in time of war could be carried out. It follows from that that the legal powers under which my duties were discharged were not perhaps either as clear or as complete as would have been necessary if it had not been for the admirable disposition of the whole Press to co-operate. I am bound to say here at the outset, and to pay this tribute to the Press as a whole, that they have done their utmost—I say it without any exceptions about the Press of all kinds and of all parties—to co-operate with the Bureau in every matter which has been in their power since I myself began this work. That, of course, in one sense greatly simplified the duties which I had to discharge, because if it had not been for this evident desire on the part of the Press to co-operate by every means in their power it would certainly have been necessary for the Home Secretary to have come to the House of Commons and get new powers for myself or some other person to exercise, because the powers in existence at the time my office was commenced were, as I have indicated, of the most shadowy description
I do not deal with such offences as might be committed by the Press and which came under the ordinary common law, or with those which only apply to a very limited class of cases which come under the Official Secrets Act, or under the Statute which this House passed in the emergency of the War a few days ago, and which was known as the Defence of the Realm Act. But the Regulations framed under that only meet certain limited cases, and added little further to the powers which I possess. They dealt with the giving of information relating to the movements of the Navy or the Army which might be an advantage directly or indirectly to the enemy. My hon. Friend who spoke from below the Gangway, and who suggested that the publication of certain articles, as to which I shall have more to say presently, was a breach of a further Regulation to the effect that nothing must be published which caused alarm or disaffection among His Majesty's subjects, failed to observe 481 that the Regulation, so far as I am aware, says that any such provision is confined to information which is given in or near a defended harbour, and was evidently intended and only meant to deal with a very limited class of cases.
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. The Regulation to which he refers would be made under the Defence of the Realm Act, but the Order in Council will not be passed till to-morrow, and therefore the law will not be in existence until then.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI am much obliged. I knew that no such power was in existence, and that the right hon. Gentleman has in contemplation the formulation of Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act. Such were the legal powers with which I had to work. It is quite obvious I could not have had exercised any-real control over all the Press had they hosen to make my actual power precisely correspond with my legal power. It is right that I should say that the Press has never adopted that attitude. If I may, let me deal with certain observations and criticisms which have been made, and I think I can perhaps answer some of them most conveniently in a general way. They betray, I think, some of them, although the tone of them is nearly all friendly, some misconception of the duties which the Bureau ever did undertake or ever could undertake. Let me describe to the House the misconceptions which I think underlie some of the criticisms.
The constitution of the Bureau is as follows: It consists of myself as the director, assisted by three secretaries, who are all civilians. I asked my hon. Relative, who sits in this House as the representative of Warrington (Mr. Harold Smith), to assist me in the first place in the capacity of my private secretary in attending to the work of the Bureau. The fact that the hon. Gentleman is related to me shall not prevent me from saying to the House what I believe to be confirmed by nearly every Pressman who has come in contact with him, and certainly by all those naval and military men who have worked with him. His many years' experience of business and of the methods of business places have 482 enabled him to systematise the work of the Bureau in a way in which no one else, at any rate who would have been at my disposal, would have been able to do. I think it right to add that, like myself, he has worked there for fourteen or fifteen hours per day as a volunteer ever since a fortnight ago. Besides the assistance which has been given by my hon. Relative, I have helping me there, and to some extent advising me on technical matters, a staff of some six Admiralty officers sitting in one room, working on shifts, of course. There are never all six there at once, but the shift is so arranged that there shall always be one representative of the Admiralty present in the Admiralty Room at any hour of the day or night, so that he can act as adviser when any Admiralty point presents itself. The same is true of the soldiers. Every minute of the day and night there is always a soldier or sailor present at the Bureau. I think therefore this ought to be remembered—and I will say something-later as to the value of the assistance given—we have provided the Press at every period of the twenty-four hours with a person of experience and training who can answer any reasonable question that is put to him by the Press as to anything which may be happening on the scene of naval or military operations, and as to whether rumours reaching them are well founded or not. It is said sometimes that one of the duties of the Press Bureau was to issue information. A sentence used by the First Lord of the Admiralty in, I think, the first speech in which he announced to the House the formation of the Bureau, contained the promise that the Bureau would afford to the public a steady stream of reliable facts. The criticism has been made to-night, in more than one quarter, that we have failed to discharge the duty of keeping the public more closely informed of what has taken place.
I desire to deal in the most candid manner possible with that charge, because I think it rests to a considerable extent upon misunderstanding. How is it put? It was put by the hon. Baronet (Sir A. Markham) by a series of illustrations. I cannot help thinking that he will see the unreasonableness of most of the illustrations if he will listen to the few suggestions that I will venture to make 483 to him. He said, in the first place, that Lord Kitchener was at the War Office, and he stated with the most absolute truth that the country had complete confidence in Lord Kitchener as Secretary of State for War. He then made this further observation that Lord Kitchener was not in touch with—I forget his exact expression—but I think that what he meant to convey was that Lord Kitchener was not in touch with public opinion and what he called the "human interest" of the campaign. Let me make plain what is the relationship of the Bureau, and of myself as representing the Bureau, to the War Office as represented in another place by Lord Kitchener and in this House by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Tennant). Whenever I have to deal with questions of high military policy—which have arisen on many occasions in the course of the last few weeks—in the first place I obtain advice from the soldiers who are in my office. They are in telephonic communication with a room of high authority at the War Office, where very distinguished officers of high position conduct cognate work. Therefore, in the first place, inquiry is conveniently made from the soldiers' room to the room of high authority, as I have said, at the War Office. On many occasions, when answers have been given first of all from the soldiers in my office, and then from the room which they consult in the War Office, and I have thought that still further information was desirable, I have gone—availing myself of the access which he has been good enough to give me whenever I thought it necessary—directly to Lord Kitchener to obtain from him his personal opinion, and invariably, when I have asked for it, in order that I might support my decision by reference, not only to his view but to his reason for that view, I have been given that reason in the fullest manner.
9.0 P.M.
The first complaint of the hon. Baronet—and it is a complaint which has been generally made in the country—was that we had suppressed for an unreasonable period the fact that the Expeditionary Force was intending to embark, had embarked, and had disembarked. May I tell the House exactly what was the part played by the Bureau in the concealment or suppression, or, as I should prefer to 484 say, the silence of the Press in reference to the departure of the Expeditionary Force. We were most expressly told, not only by the War Office, but by those who are responsible for the Fleet, the presence and protection of which alone rendered possible the prodigious transport undertaking, the conveying of that great Army to the coast of France, that Lord Kitchener would contemplate with great anxiety the sending of so large a force, and the First Lord of the Admiralty would not be prepared to guarantee its protection by the Fleet unless every step that could be taken in this country was taken to secure secrecy in the matter. For anyone to suggest that I, a civilian, was to take upon myself the responsibility, whatever was taking place abroad—and I assure the House that nothing was taking place of the kind suggested by the hon. Gentleman—of deviating in the slightest degree from the instructions I had received, is simply foolish. But I am entitled to say that two days before the final landing of that part of the Expeditionary Force which was sent at once I saw Lord Kitchener himself—I think I saw him on each of those days, but I saw him or his secretary—and asked whether the time had come when the embargo upon publication might be removed, and on each occasion he gave me a perfectly adequate reason, which it was not necessary to state to the House, for postponing the date on which publication might be made.
May I make an observation on something the hon. Baronet said, which at first sight might appear to be the basis of some of his views, The hon. Baronet stated that these movements of our Expeditionary Force were widely stated in the "New York Herald." in the French Press, and in the Paris "Daily Mail "—and I think another hon. Member, with a knowledge which certainly we do not possess, added the German Press. I ought to tell the House exactly what was done in this case. I am able to assure the House that in every case which came to my knowledge—and I looked at a considerable number of papers—the information, both as to dates and as to places, was erroneous. I may say, in the second place, that the moment our attention and the attention of Lord Kitchener was called 485 to the fact that this information was being given in the foreign papers, Lord Kitchener at once communicated with the French War Office and the authorities in Paris, and did his best—ultimately, I believe, with complete success—to stop further publication. As far as the Paris editions of the "New York Herald" and the "Daily Mail" are concerned, I can speak from my own personal knowledge, because I saw at once the representatives of those papers in London, and pointed out that this silence had been assented to by the whole Press in London. The moment their attention was called to it, they undertook to abide by the same restrictions, and, as far as I am aware, after the one issue to which reference has been made, they did with complete loyalty observe the same silence. I dismiss this by saying that our War Office and our Admiralty could not be absolved from the duty under which they lay, of seeing as far as they could that no disclosure which came from close at home where these things would be known, and whence the information could be relied upon, was made by the fact that they were physically unable to extend their censorship into foreign countries where the information could hardly be relied upon as having the same degree of authority. I need not say any more about that Army and the extent to which silence upon that point was maintained in the English Press.
I think I might possibly deal now, and deal very shortly indeed, with two similar objections which were made, the one by the hon. Baronet, and the other one, with great moderation, by the hon. Member for South Shields. The hon. Member complained—and suggested it was extremely unintelligent that we objected—I need not weary the House with the extent of these provisions where they deal with matters of naval and military authority—and that these prohibitions were only suggested by the Office over which I preside. It was thought by the Admiralty—for reasons which, without describing, I will give a general indication of in a moment—that it was extremely undesirable that it should be stated where any English ship was struck, and, secondly, that any German mines had been located. I am not going to argue whether that prohibition is as unreasonable as the hon. Member who 486 addressed the House seemed to imagine. Like the Noble Lord who spoke, I can give immediately very obvious and strong reasons why it might not be desirable that the enemy should know when these have been located, or that they are no longer there; but I will say, first, that I was requested in the communication—received from a source at the Admiralty of the highest authority—to see that this prohibition was issued, and to see that it was observed by the Press.
Inasmuch as the hon. Baronet spoke to the editor of a South Shields paper—and I think, also, that very probably that was the source of the information which has possessed the hon. Member who spoke from behind the Front Bench—I hope to deal very shortly with it. The hon. Baronet said that the gentleman referred to was treated by my hon. relative at the Bureau, as if my relative had been—I think he said a Prussian Uhlan, or something of the sort. That, of course, is a suggestion which, unless the hon. Baronet had something in his mind upon which to base his charge, he hardly should have made; and also if he had intended to bring it up in Debate in this House, it would only have been courteous if he had acquainted me with the fact in order that I could have inquired into it. I am informed by my hon. relative that he has never spoken to the gentleman in his life; that his communications with him have been written.
§ Sir A MARKHAM"I enclose a copy of the letter I yesterday sent to Mr. Harold Smith. I must state for your information that that is the offence which drew upon my head two letters couched in terms the Kaiser might use towards a blundering subordinate. It was simply complaining that we had received the official announcement that our troops were in the fighting line long after the full knowledge and information had appeared in the French, Belgian, and American papers …."
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHIf I understand the hon. Baronet, he has founded himself for the purpose of making a general charge against my hon. relative—there were some seventy or eighty Pressmen about—to a statement made by one of these gentlemen who evidently came into collision with some rule that has been passed, not by 487 us, but by some higher authority for whom we are the responsible mouthpiece. I only suggest to the hon. Baronet that it would be fairer in a case of this kind, unless he has better evidence, not to make a general charge against those who are doing their best to discharge the duties placed upon them. I can assure the hon. Baronet—and I will give him a temporary pass for the purpose that if he will come to the Press Bureau, where the representatives of the Press are working by day and by night, and where they are constantly in contact with my brother, that he will not find that opinion confirmed by one single member of the Press.
I have only to say that having received instructions on a matter on which I am assured the safety of either the Army or the Navy depends, as to such and such restrictions, I exercise no discretion of any kind. I take it as an order. Whether it is right or not, I exercise no discretion. That statement is subject to one qualification, and one qualification only, and that is where it has dealt with a matter in respect of which I am constantly asked by persons of importance in the newspaper world for a reason or justification of the ordinance given. I have then gone over to Lord Kitchener or to Mr. Churchill, or one of their representatives, and I have said, "While there is great readiness to obey this, may I, seeing that those asking may not have the necessary technical knowledge on the matter, give them a reason to satisfy them that the course suggested of keeping out the news is not an unreasonable one?" I have almost always been given a reason, and I have passed it on.
As to the other matter, as soon as ever I received instructions from the Admiralty I issued them. I got the first question from the gentleman at South Shields. I immediately, in order to make quite sure, went into the Admiralty room myself, as I always do when I receive a question from the editor of position, and said, "Just ring up, please, and make quite sure that this prohibition is to be observed, and that it is the desire of the Admiralty that, no mention of the matter should be made." I received from the Admiralty a communication couched in the strongest possible language—an expression of their 488 desire that on no account was anything of this kind to be made public.
The next comment that was made was in regard to the overhauling of the "Galician." That vessel, it is well-known, was overhauled at sea. The instructions of the Admiralty, for obvious reasons, have always been that if any English ship was seized or challenged by any German vessel, under circumstances which might enable the exact position of the German vessel to be located, that that knowledge must never be published in the English papers, because, of course, at once the enemy knows that its whereabouts are known to our Fleet. I agree that there comes a time two or three or four days afterwards when that prohibition may reasonably be withdrawn, because the positions are so far altered. But I asked, just as I asked in the other case at the Admiralty: "Is it your wish that no reference of any kind by way of letters in the paper, or anything else, should be given in respect of the, "Galician"? The answer was the same as before—that under no circumstances must there be any reference to it in the Press. I stopped the message. I stopped it for several days. The hon. Baronet says that the "Times" published this information before the other papers. That is perfectly true. They assumed, and I cannot say it was unjustifiable, though it was unfortunate. I pointed it out to the editor that inasmuch as four or five days had passed, the reason for non-publication must have ceased to operate. On that assumption they published it. They were perfectly right in assuming that on that date, it was unimportant that reference should be made, but as I pointed out to them where they were wrong was in having acted without proper communication with me until, so to speak. I had let the flag fall. I think it was eight days' afterwards that they published it.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMNo, four days.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI think the hon. Baronet is quite wrong.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMAugust 19th to 23rd.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHNo, no, it was in the official papers, and under the same circumstances. But in these cases we have a 489 great deal to do, and if it had occurred to me or to anyone that this was a case in which the time had fully expired, it would have been mentioned so that all the papers alike could give the information. Let me say there is one charge which, I am glad to say, has not been made in this Debate, and which never could have been made by anybody—that there has been the slightest discrimination as between any papers. I have been on the most cordial relationship with the editors of papers who, I do not know what they would say of me now, but never in the whole course of my life said anything good of me in the past, and certainly I do not exaggerate when I say that my relationship with them has been as cordial and friendly as with any other papers, and from the first day I went to this Office, it is really superfluous to say, that in no way in giving information was the slightest discrimination made. I must now take one or two specific complaints. It is stated that the declaration of war was withheld from one important American agency. If I am right—and I am sure my recollection is right, when the declaration of war was made, the Bureau was not in existence, so that responsibility does not rest with us. Then it was stated also—I think by the hon. Baronet, or one of the later speakers—that the fall of Namur was only given to two papers. As far as the Bureau is concerned, that statement is simply meaningless. The fall of Namur, which was fully authenticated at the time the announcement was made, was announced through the Press Association to every newspaper and Press Association ten minutes after the announcement to us by the War Office. I think these are the specific grounds of complaint made. I now tome to the more general criticism which have proceeded from different parts of the House.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI will take things in order. I was going to deal in the first place with the general statements, and to make an explanation that we have not given to the Press sufficient information in the three weeks or more during which we have been in existence. My answer to that is to invite the House to consider what are the circumstances under which the 490 functions of our Army and of the Allies are carried on. No one will suppose, for instance, that we are to manufacture incidents. It is suggested we should have the assistance of journalists, but it is no part of our functions to manufacture news. We are not in competition with the news agencies. The real basis of the charge—and it is with the real basis I want to deal, and not the particular words in which it is expressed—the real basis of the charge I am sure is this: Not that the Press Bureau has failed to be sufficiently communicative, but that the Government has not published a sufficient number of authoritative statements as to the fortunes of the British Army in the field. I think that must obviously be the meaning of it. No one is foolish enough to suppose that I, or the Bureau, who spend a great deal of time in trying to get information, would withhold it from the public when we get it. I can only say that I received nothing either from the War Office or the Admiralty from the first moment that I went to the Bureau of the slightest importance or of the slightest public interest which has not been instantly published, and I think I ought to add that many times the whole staff and my brother received announcements from twelve to one in the morning and have sat there from half an hour to an hour later for the sole purpose of seeing that the public Press got the information.
I do not deal with the suggestion that the Bureau has suppressed information. I have no claim to speak on behalf of the Government, but I have been in constant touch both with the War Office and the Admiralty. It is said or suggested that more information could have been given to the country as soon as War broke out. I do not think the statement is made at all about the Admiralty. I think it will be generally recognised that the Admiralty-news, when it can be given, has been given very promptly and fully. If any criticisms of that kind have been made they escaped my notice. But the charge has been made, and made freely, in relation to the position and fortunes of the Army. I can only make this observation: I should doubt whether any Army in the recent history of fighting, from the first moment that it became associated with the allied troops, has had a time more trying than the Expeditionary Force. For four days and 491 nights it was constantly either marching or fighting, or both, and we should indeed be an impatient and an unreasonable people if we expected the General, in these circumstances, to spend his time in writing dispatches. It would obviously be impossible, and unreasonable to expect him to do so.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMNo one ever suggested it.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHThe hon. Baronet says he never suggested it, but his main complaint was that, in the first place, we were not touched with the human interest that ought to animate such a bureau, and, in the second place, he said we did not give out a constant stream of information.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMNo.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI understood the hon. Baronet to say so. If he tells me he is not one of those who complains of the paucity of the information, if he is not one of those critics, of course I accept his disclaimer at once. It is sufficient for me to say that many have complained that we were not giving sufficient information with regard to military operations. Every day, and sometimes twice a day, I have gone to the War Office, unless someone from the War Office first came to me, and I have not done this over the telephone. I have gone once or twice a day to the War Office and asked persons of the highest consequence and position whether any news had been received which we could publish. I have done that every day. And it is not true to say that no news has been given. News has been given, I agree, vague and often sketchy, until the information we issued on Sunday, but here again I have only one defence, and it seems to me to be a completely adequate one. The information which was drawn up as to the position of the Army was drawn up in every case by soldiers of highest experience and authority. They drew it up with the knowledge, which they certainly had very clearly, that the public were deeply concerned to have all the information that could safely be given at the' earliest possible moment. And when I am told, in answer to these representations, that in their judgment—and one may put it perfectly plainly, in 492 the judgment of Lord Kitchener himself—that what was being published was all that could be published without risk or injury to the public service, I say, as long as I discharge my present office, that is a sufficient answer for me.
I come now to the other side of our Committee, and that is the work done under the head of censoring. I have indicated the great legal difficulties under which the work has been done. I have said that up to the present all that we were entitled to censor in law was information to the enemy directly or indirectly of the movement of His Majesty's armed or maritime forces, so that the powers which we have been exercising have been the legal powers which could only have been put in force when the offence was so great that it could be submitted to a court martial. The House will observe that that gives us the most limited licence to deal with any articles which we receive. We receive a mass of articles which may be objectionable from many points of view, but we have no legal right to deal with them. I want to make it clear that I have never asked for further powers with the exception of the revision of the Regulations referred to by the Home Secretary simply because the Press has behaved so well, and have shown that it was not necessary to apply legal powers because they were willing, loyally, to acquiesce in the decisions of our office. Now I come to the general principle upon which the censorship has been carried out. I do not claim that the censorship has always been the same, but I do make the claim that a great attempt, and a sincere attempt, has been made on the part of everybody concerned to give the same treatment, but when you have different shifts of day censors and night censors, every censor will not always take the same view of the same facts or of facts closely analogous. A careful record is kept of every decision. A log is kept in the soldiers' room and in the sailors' room which enables them to see what previous decisions have been given if the facts are identical, but if the facts are not identical but analogous, difficulties must arise, and they always must arise unless one person does the whole of the censoring, which is quite impossible. I may say, however, that these difficulties are growing less as the censors get more experience.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONSome of them are quicker, and they are not all men of equal intelligence.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHThat is so. I can only add that the principle on which we have gone in asking the Press to be silent has been to ask them to exclude material which was excluded by the decisions of Lord Kitchener and the War Office upon lines of general policy. If Lord Kitchener has expressed a wish that certain news should not be given I have endeavoured as far as I could see that it was not published, but in exercising the censorship it has always been exercised with the assent of Lord Kitchener. I think I should make it perfectly clear that although the question considered is a purely military one, Lord Kitchener has never once refused to consider carefully, attentively, and patiently, every consideration which the mind of a layman might suggest against the necessity of a particular prohibition. When the hon. Baronet opposite makes an observation that Lord Kitchener is not familiar with the circumstances of English political life, I can only say that nobody could have shown himself more patience to any representation which I made to him either on behalf of the Press or the Bureau. Now I pass to the circumstances which has been much commented upon connected with the articles that appeared in the "Times" and the "Weekly Dispatch" of Sunday. Let me point out that up to Sunday morning many complaints and criticisms had been made against the Bureau on its censoring side. It had been stated that we were suppressing intentionally and broadcast information in the publication of which there was no harm. Our answer is that we on our own authority have never suppressed anything from first to last except when we were acting upon the instructions of persons in high authority. As an office we do not suppress anything. Although I have soldiers and sailors with me who are very capable persons they do not belong to the highest ranks of the Service from whom alone I get information on special points. Up to last Sunday there bad only been one criticism of us in the Press. To-day the criticism is of quite a different character. The criticism to which I refer is that we are keeping things 494 back, that we are over-censoring, and that newspapers are not allowed to publish information from their correspondents.
I think I ought to make it clear that the work is done at certain hours of the night under very high pressure. It has been stated by the hon. Baronet opposite, and it may be true, that the articles in question were in the Bureau Office for some hours before they were dealt with. Those hours are just the hours when there is the greatest pressure, because all the articles being submitted by the Press for the morning papers are sent about the same time, and it is necessary to deal with them at once. The number is large, and it takes a long time to get through them. The papers in question were the "Times," the "Daily Mail," and the "Weekly Dispatch," and I think that they have been very hardly dealt with. It was a "Daily Mail" message and the "Times" message, and the "Daily Mail" message was published in the "Weekly Dispatch" because that appears on Sunday. I have said that the papers in question were hardly dealt with, and I am going to tell the House my view perfectly candidly. Let me say at the outset that no two papers have, from the first moment the Bureau came into existence behaved better or more loyally to the wishes of the War Office and the Admiralty than the "Times" and the "Daily Mail." I should not have singled them out in this way but for the fact that they have been made the subject of so much criticism during the last two days. I can only say that I have been dealing constantly with the editor of the "Daily Mail" and the editor of the "Times." They are very important papers whether one agrees with them or not, and I have never expressed any guidance of any kind on which they have not shown their willingness to act. The circumstances must be remembered under which these articles were sent in by these papers for censorship. No information of a substantial character had been published officially for some time, indeed this is the gravamen of one of the charges which was being made at that time. I think the day before some of the leading articles in very important organs of the Press were proclaiming that no information was coming through from Government 495 sources, and that no information was coming through newspaper sources, and the whole burden of the complaint was that we were suppressing news. It will also be remembered, as has been said with great justice by more than one speaker, that no war correspondents were being allowed at the front, and that there was the greatest anxiety, and legitimate anxiety, to obtain any information as to the fortunes of the campaign.
Supposing the statements made by a correspondent, for whose ability the "Times" vouched had contained an accurate picture of what was taking place and had been been correct, it would be difficult, I think, to contend, apart from its form, which is a matter of taste, that it would have been right under any circumstances to stop such an article. I am assuming now that the facts were all truly stated. Supposing all the statements contained in the article had been true. [An HON MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] I am going to deal with that, but I must make the hypothesis. I had no means, and no one had any means of testing the facts, except that we knew they came from a correspondent who was vouched for as a man of constancy, ability, and experience. Such being the circumstances, I would invite the House most carefully to consider—it may be, necessary, and, at any rate, the decision is a formidable one—whether on the assumption that the facts were true, they would have desired, had I been able to consult them, to authorise me to suppress their publication. [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes!"] I think there would be great differences of opinion. If it becomes necessary on high grounds of public service, and of course newspapers are constantly giving away knowledge on these points, I am certain Parliament would not hesitate to say that it must be stopped, but a tremendous question of policy lies behind. Supposing information came in that was true, and was not injurious to the public service, except in the sense that it might occasion alarm, would it be the desire of the House of Commons that the Press Bureau, which at present has no legal power to interfere, should operate to prevent its publication?
I want the House clearly to understand how this particular matter was dealt with. 496 It came to me, as I have said, vouched for in this form. Some persons have supposed that it was in some shape vouched for by the Bureau in the same sense that an announcement that is made is vouched for, but on the very face of it the message, which of course was received in the most absolute good faith by the "Times," was a message, admittedly, of a man who was speaking from hearsay and without direct contact with the front. He talks about his motor-car journeys and so forth. When: it came, I myself examined the article. It came at the period of greatest pressure—at least, my opportunity of examining it came at a period of very great pressure. The article, besides the parts which were published, contained a number of references to naval and military movements which were excised, and, as altered, it was returned to the papers concerned. I am glad to say that no other officer of the Bureau is responsible but myself. I take the responsibility, under circumstances of which I shall have a word more, to say, of having returned it, initialed by me, in the shape in which it was returned to the paper. Dealing with a censorship which is quite, new, and the precise legal range of which is imperfectly understood, it is easy to see how the editor drew the inference that the article was not only no longer in violation of the positive rules of the censorship, which was clear, and as far as he was concerned he was absolutely protected, but was also generally sanctioned by the Bureau.
I treated the articles as articles which did not come into conflict with the positive rules we have laid down as to giving information in relation to the movements of the armed forces of the Crown, and which on the very face of them depended upon the evidence of persons who were not at the front; and it seemed to me to be quite impossible for those reasons that the articles should be mistaken for official articles. I tell the House perfectly frankly that I think now, if one had known everything that was going to happen, if one had been working with perhaps a little more time to give to every important article which was clamouring for attention at the time, it would have been better if I had written a note to the editor asking him whether, quite apart from the legal powers we possessed, he considered 497 it was a wise article to publish. I think it would have been better if I had done so. I had done it on some previous occasions. Dealing with one point which I cannot help thinking some hon. Gentlemen have in mind, I may say that these are the only two articles of the particular kind so far as I know that have been presented to us. I should be very sorry if it were thought that these papers were allowed to publish articles of this kind, and that other papers having similar articles were not allowed to deal with them. The House, I am sure, will accept that from me. If I had written a note asking the editor whether, apart from the legal powers, and apart from the question, which to me was clear, whether it did not come into conflict with the positive rules which we were in a position to exercise, and which we were exercising, it was a wise article to publish, I have no doubt whatever that he would have suppressed the article altogether; and the only comment I would make on the communication from the editor of the "Times" to the "Evening News" to-night is that equally, without myself blaming them, if they had conveyed to me, when they sent the message, the fact that they already had a doubt in their own minds as to whether, apart from the censorship, it was a wise article. I think that perhaps would have been as useful as if I on my part had conveyed to them the suggestion which I have said I think I should have been acting wisely if after reading the article I had conveyed to them.
The "Times" and the "Daily Mail," as I have said, have been specially active in co-operating with me, and I am anxious that they should be fairly treated in the matter, and that the responsibility, as far as it is my responsibility, should be taken by me. Both these papers immediately suppressed the article from their Monday editions, and from that moment they were no longer published anywhere. I summarise what I have to say on this subject in the following way. At the time the articles were read I treated them for censoring purposes within the full compass of the rules we have laid down for dealing with articles of this kind. All references to military and naval operations were excised. Some amendments, as I have 498 said, were inserted in various parts of die-articles. It was, under those circumstances, returned by me to the office.
§ Mr. JONATHAN SAMUELWere any additions made to it?
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI have said so, but if the hon. Member wishes me to be more explicit, I shall be glad to tell the House exactly what was done. I had been asked by Lord Kitchener, in the course of various discussions I had had with him, to, as far as possible, assist his object, which, was, of course, to obtain recruits for his Army, and under these circumstances, having read this article and excised all parts of it which dealt with the movement of troops, I suggested that reference might be made at the end of the article to the effect that what was wanted was, "Reinforcements, reinforcements, and still more reinforcements." That was in order to carry out what I knew to be the policy of the War Office, and, as far as I am aware, it was the only addition that was made. In this matter I have been perfectly candid with the House. I have told it all the facts, whatever the consequences might be. I had not had an opportunity, although I tried to see the right hon. Gentleman, of explaining them to the Prime Minister before the question was put to-day. I had, however, done so to-some of his colleagues. I am most anxious it should be clearly understood that I myself acquit of all responsibility the editors of the "Times" and the "Daily Mail." and I may tell the House exactly why I do so. They received this news believing it to be true. The hon. Gentleman says it is not true, and I think it was clearly most grossly exaggerated. It was clearly gleaned by the gentlemen who wrote it from persons who had not been at the front, and who had given him a story disproportionate to the facts. Therefore, I say I do not think it was true. But I believed it in the main to be true, and the discretion which I exercised upon it was based on the fact that, on the face-of it, it was a report purporting to come from a gentleman not at the front, and everybody who read it would see that that was so. Furthermore, it dealt with matters which did not come into conflict with the rules we laid down, and on which, alone in law, we were entitled to act.
499 I present the reasons to the House. I have not had an earlier opportunity of doing so, although I should have found one, if I had not anticipated that this Debate would have come on much earlier. I have only to say this in conclusion: Since I went to that office we have dealt with thousands upon thousands of articles, letters, and dispatches that have come from the front. It is no exaggeration to say we have dealt with many thousands daily, and I cannot help thinking it a source of some satisfaction that, going to a new office, going there with no system in existence and with no staff in existence, it has been found possible to deal with so large a number of articles by way of censorship with so little criticism and so little complaint. I do not in the least pretend that mistakes have not been made. I will go further. I will take the House completely into my confidence and say I am quite certain mistakes will continue to be made. But all I can say is that we are getting more experienced in the office.
Every day we are becoming more familiar with the difficulties we have to cope with, and more familiar with the routine of the methods by which those difficulties must be dealt with, and I can only assure the House, as representing the public, who are entitled to look to the Press for close and constant help, that, as long as I am there, I shall grudge no time and no labour which may be necessary in order to consider very carefully every Press interest, every interest that can be put forward as one in which the public are concerned, and I shall use all the influence I possess that information may be given to the public at the earliest possible moment, so that they may be kept closely aware of "all the stage" of the great conflict which is now going on. I have only to say, in conclusion, that whatever errors have been made, and that whatever errors may be made in the future, they will not be made because any effort, industry or good will is spared to avoid them, and I sincerely hope that with the ten days' added experience of the work of the Bureau which we shall have been afforded by the time Parliament meets again, all grounds of complaint, such as they are, will by then almost have disappeared.
§ Mr. McKENNAI am sure I should be using a wrong expression if I were to say that the striking and convincing speech which we have just heard was a defence of the action of the right hon. Gentleman, It is not a defence, for the simple reason that he was not attacked. I have listened to the whole of the Debate, and I am quite sure that the general sense of the House and of every speaker, whatever loose expressions may, in fact, have been used—the general sense of the House by no manner of means makes any attack on the right hon. Gentleman, whose exertions and great ability, whose knowledge and experience have been given to the service of the Government with the greatest personal generosity and at very considerable sacrifice to himself. Undoubtedly one or two expressions were used in the course of the Debate which seemed to me as if they conveyed a kind of censure on the right hon. Gentleman, but I am sure that that was not intended, and the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the whole feeling of the House-has been, throughout, in complete support of his general action at the Press Bureau. I am bound to say not one of us envies him his work. It is at the best a thankless task, bound to bring him into opposition, first with the Press, and then with the public, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude for the admirable manner in which the work has been clone. Earlier in the day the Prime Minister, in reply to a question, spoke of the legitimate impatience which the public feel at the paucity of information which they have received as to the great events taking place on the Continent of Europe. The right hon. Gentleman in a very eloquent passage defended the Army from the charge of not having supplied us with more information, but I can certainly say this, that all the information which we have received from the front, subject to such suppression as was necessary not to give away the names of places, and the situation of the Army at the moment—in fact, such suppression as everybody recognises is necessary—with that qualification all the information which has been received has been published.
We have seen it stated, again and again, that the Government have tried to suppress information which ought to have 501 been given, and one hon. Gentleman, in the course of the Debate, referred to two regiments which had been cut up, and suggested that the Government had suppressed all information with regard to those two regiments. Well, Sir, I do not know the names of the regiments. I have seen all the telegrams. I asked the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for War, who has also seen all the telegrams, did he know the names of the regiments? He did not know them either. So that what is supposed to be public property and is known to everybody is not known to the Government. With that assurance, which relates to the past, I hope the House will rest satisfied that there has been no suppression of information known to us. It is recognised that there is a legitimate anxiety and even impatience that there is no more information obtained. The right hon. Gentleman has said it would be grossly unfair to blame those who had been fighting a great action day after day under the most exhausting circumstances for not having sent us longer, interesting, and detailed accounts which could be published. The Government have themselves now taken steps to provide that prompt, full, and trustworthy information of the operations should be furnished from day to day. I hope when that information is received that the task of the right hon. Gentleman will be rendered a great deal easier. As he has said, the Admiralty are in a quite different position. They are able to get information by wireless at every moment of every event that takes place at sea. The military cannot give information in the same way. All the information that the Admiralty has furnished has been published at once, and all the information which the War Office has received has been published at once. As I have said, we trust that in future fuller and more complete accounts will be able to be given, to the satisfaction alike of the right hon. Gentleman, the Press, and the public.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONI would ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer a question. Will he tell the House whether authorised correspondents under the conditions laid down are to be allowed to go to the front? I only ask the question.
§ Mr. McKENNANo, Sir, there is no change in the policy as regards authorised correspondents being allowed at the front. We must bear one very important fact in mind in this War. We are acting as the Ally of other nations, and we must conform in large measure to their policy.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONI only ask for public information.
§ Mr. McKENNAI would remind the House that in this matter we have to bear in mind that the French have primary responsibility.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHMay I ask the indulgence of the House in these circumstances? I will gladly stay a little longer if it is desired that the Debate should proceed, but I would point out that I have had no dinner and have not been to the Bureau.
§ 10.0 P.M.
§ Mr. TENNANTI only rise to say one sentence in case a very unfortunate state of things should occur with regard to the story told by the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham) earlier this evening. I do not want it to go abroad that there is likely to be a number of cases similar to the one he detailed to the House. I did not know then whether it was true, and I do not know now whether it is true. I do not think he knows. I think he said the information had reached him. He told the House that wounded men had come back from the front having been in trains for three days without food or their wounds being dressed; that they arrived at Boulogne where there was no arrangement to feed them or to dress their wounds; and that they had gone on to Folkestone and equally found there no preparations for dealing with wounded soldiers. I wish to inform the House that the organised line of evacuation of wounded was not tia Boulogne and Folkestone—I do not think it is necessary to give the line to anybody—and that if any wounded men were so unfortunate as to get into trains going to Boulogne and then crossed the Channel to Folkestone, they must have done so in the confusion and hurry of the moment. There were ample resources to deal with all the wounded upon the proper lines of evacuation. When the military authorities became aware that some casualties were 503 arriving at Folkestone, emergency measures were immediately taken for their reception at that port. I ought to say that those wounded who did come via Boulogne and Folkestone were probably not very seriously wounded, or they would not have been able to get into the trains in question, as none of the authorities put them in those trains. I would like to add that several Red Cross men who have come over here have expressed admiration at the completeness of the arrangements on the proper line, so that when we are told that a similar state of things existed in the Crimean War, when we know how inefficient were the arrangements made for attending to the wounded, it is really a considerable libel upon the arrangements that have been made in this War.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTThere are two persons who have a very real grievance with regard to this episode and the discussion which has arisen out of it. In the first place, there is the "Times," and, in the second place, there is the right hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith). The article to which so much exception has been taken was deplorable [An HON. MEMBER: "It was worse than that."]—in the circumstances in which it was published, but it would be a mistake and an injustice to the newspaper which published it to characterise that article as false in the sense of being an invention invented in Fleet Street, or in the sense of being a lie. It was deplorable because it was an incomplete and partial statement of facts as they were observed or gathered by a correspondent on the fringe of the great events which were happening. It is said to be that kind of half-truth which is worse than a lie, and it had something of that effect, but it was the whole truth so far as it was known by the newspaper which published it. The other half of the truth was suppressed, not by the newspaper, but by those who were responsible for the decision not to allow any accredited correspondent at the front or in the centre. If reports had been published not only from the fringe but from the centre, we should have been able to correct the one by the other, and might have had the whole truth. I have looked at the comment which has been published 504 by the "Times" to-day in some news paper, and from that we gather that this article was not only sanctioned and was not only passed, but that it was actually approved for publication. Not only that, but there was added to it an appeal based on the article itself, for additional recruits. In these circumstances, when a newspaper has received an article from a correspondent whom it believes to be a reliable correspondent dealing with facts which he has observed, and with tales with which he has heard from those who have come from the operations, when it is not only sanctioned, but when he is encouraged to publish it, the editor who refused to let the public know the truth, as he believed it to be the truth, would be incurring a very great responsibility indeed. I think that when severe censure has been expressed on the newspaper for publishing that article, those who pass that censure must not be fully seized of the fact that it was not only sanctioned, but that publication was encouraged by the Press Bureau.
In the second place, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is in a very difficult, and to some extent, a very unfair position. He did not thrust himself forward. He responded to an invitation to accept these onerous duties. He responded to an invitation to accept a position of very great difficulty, and of the very highest public utility. He knew, and everyone must have known, that he was accepting a thankless and ungrateful task, and that he was not lying down upon a bed of roses in accepting that position. I think he has performed a public duty. He has placed all of us under a debt of gratitude to him, and the fact that a man of his high position in public affairs undertook these duties, in my opinion, secured a more willing co-operation on the part of all friends of co-operation which extended infinitely beyond the legal powers which he was able to enforce. But the peculiar difficulty of his position comes from the fact that he is not a responsible Minister. He has no direct responsibility for these measures. He is somewhat in the position of a permanent official—he is responsible for the control of executive work. He is not responsible for any decisions, on broad lines of policy as to what must be published and what must 505 not be published. There, the two great Departments which are conducting the War, the Admiralty and the War Office, are alone responsible. They have the fullest responsibility, and in the capacity in which he has been working he is responsible, as a permanent Civil Servant is responsible, merely for the carrying out of the executive details. I think the right hon. Gentleman has been placed in a somewhat unfair position here tonight. He had no power of control over the policy of his Department. I dare say if he had been speaking as a responsible Minister he could have spoken with very much greater freedom, and I think in this case there ought to have been a reply from a representative either of the War Office or of the Admiralty. I think that was a duty of grace which one or other of these Departments owed to the right hon. Gentleman for his public spirit in responding to the invitation, that one or other of them should have accepted the burden of replying more fully than he, owing to his position, was able to do.
There is one other remark I want to make. Many of the difficulties and embarrassments which have arisen with regard to the position of the Press Bureau have arisen owing to misunderstanding with regard to the function and duty of the Bureau. It is a remarkable fact, so far as I can recollect, that there has been no full and precise definition of the objects and functions and powers of the Bureau. That is certainly a very anomalous position. I think we ought to have from some responsible Minister a full and precise definition of the functions and duties of the Bureau, so that it can be seen in future by every one concerned whether it is or is not keeping within the lines which it was intended to keep within.
§ Mr. SHERWELLWe have been discussing for some hours, under conditions of great disadvantage, a matter of momentous importance to the whole nation, and while I sympathise entirely with the plea entered by the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) that in the discussion of a question of this kind we ought to preserve as far as possible a sense of perspective and proportion, I would say that there is probably no point at which national interests could be more vitally touched than 506 they are touched in reference to the publicity or non-publicity of important news. It must not be forgotten that in reference to this scheme, while the issues are great the nation itself, because of the unparalleled sacrifice it is attempting to make, has reason to expect great consideration to be paid to it. But I quite understand the conditions under which this Debate must be further continued, and therefore I do not propose to make some observations which I should be glad to have an opportunity of making had the Debate been conducted under more favourable conditions. I will, however, say that so far as I myself am concerned, and as far as the impression created upon my mind by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) is concerned, I think that what he has shown very convincingly to the House is that while he himself, personally, is not to blame for what has or what has not taken place recently, he has said enough to show that he has been placed in a perfectly false and altogether impossible position. I should like to feel assured, as I am not assured at this moment, that the public at large, and very important interests in the public, have reason to hope for better conditions in the future owing to the new arrangements which have been made.
I must be allowed to say one word in passing on a very grave matter, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated, namely, the publication of certain articles in a paper yesterday. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has really missed the vital point in connection with the publication of those articles. He said, "If they were true, had we any right to suppress them?" Are we to understand that the statement published yesterday afternoon on the authority of Lord Kitchener was a statement drawn up for the Press Bureau owing entirely to the publication of articles in the "Times," the "Observer," and the "Weekly Dispatch"? I assume that the information given by Lord Kitchener and by the Press Bureau was in the knowledge of the Government prior to the publication of those articles in the "Times," the "Weekly Dispatch," the "Observer," and the "Daily Mail." Surely the head of the Bureau had not been placed in such a position that he 507 could not check the accuracy, and ascertain the reliableness of those articles in the light of information in the knowledge of the Government! It seems to me perfectly preposterous to state that the great Departments of State should not be in possession of information showing conclusively that the articles were inaccurate and misleading, and that the articles should be allowed to go out and to receive circulation by permission of the Press Bureau.
I confess that I heard with great misgiving the admission made to-day that certain additions were made to those articles by the Press Bureau itself. As I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman's explanation those additions were made, to put it quite bluntly, for recruiting purposes—that is to say, in Lord Kitchener's view, it was desirable that the public should be called upon to respond in larger numbers to the call to arms. But surely we are violating every principle of the censorship if we are to turn articles submitted to the Press Bureau to recruiting purposes by the State authorities in this country. I want to enter a protest too—I would much rather have made it in the presence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who is suffering, like some of us on this side, from the fact that we have not had our dinners—I must say that I object to the past methods of the Press Bureau, partly because of their apparent discrimination in the exercise of the censorship, and, secondly, because of the apparently unequal treatment which they have rendered to various journals in this country. At the outset of the War the Board of Admiralty issued a request, or a demand, to the newspapers of this country that they should not publish mail and shipping news. I am glad to know that the majority of the newspapers in the country loyally responded to that request, and have not published mail and shipping news. But the "Times" and the "Daily Mail," and two or three other papers have persisted in publishing mail and shipping news, and they are publishing it to-day. One paper, of considerable influence in the North of England, which loyally responded to the appeal of the Board of Admiralty, has 508 twice written to that Board and to the Press Bureau asking whether the continued publication in other papers is a defiance of the Admiralty's wish; but it has not received from the Board of Admiralty or the Press Bureau any answer to the inquiry. It is facts of this kind which do create a strong suspicion in the minds of the average person that there is an absence of equal treatment in the exercise of this censorship. I sincerely hope that the prominence given to the subject by this Debate will have a very radical effect in improving the conditions in future.
§ Mr. DILLONThe great scandal of the publication of those two articles in the "Times" and the "Daily Mail" yesterday has been vastly intensified by the amazing statement which we have heard from that bench to-night. As the hon. Member who has just spoken truly pointed out, the Press Censor, when he had those articles before him, must have known that they were false, and were calculated, as any person of ordinary intelligence must have known, to create alarm and panic in this country. To my amazement the Press Censor stood up and admitted to the House that he sanctioned the publication of those articles, and made additions to them, and he admitted that they were to be taken by the country as an incitement to recruiting. In other words, we have it stated, by the Press Censor himself, that he considers the publication of false news a justifiable method of recruiting in this country. Can any hon. Member pretend, after what has taken place in this Debate, that the Censor, unless disgracefully treated by the War Office, did not know yesterday that the news was grossly misrepresenting all the facts? Either the article was untrue or Lord Kitchener's reply, published the same afternoon, which was manifestly a reply to that article, is untrue. They cannot both be true; they are absolutely contradictory. We have heard the Press Censor state to-day that that article was sanctioned, that he made an addition that was to be published by the newspapers, and that he made that addition in order that it might provide a ground for recruiting in this country and sending out reinforcements. That is to me the most amazing admission that I have ever heard 509 made in this House. I agree with the Home Secretary that it was a defence, and it was a very ineffective defence, of the whole system.
One of the greatest evils of the whole system of censorship in this country is that the existence of the Press censorship has induced the public to believe that every statement circulated with the authority of the Press censorship was reliable. What made these two articles so particularly mischievous was that the newspapers in question stated that they had submitted them to the Press censor before publishing them, and that the public would look upon them as official or semi-official. The public in this as in all other countries is far too well accustomed to the unreliability of Press messages to accept them as gospel truth. But the present message which was submitted to the Official Press Bureau, which is in close touch with the War Office, was in a wholly different position with the public, and of course has far greater influence with the public. We have heard in this Debate statements about the indifference of the country, and the fact that the public were not rising to the gravity of the situation. How could the public rise to the gravity of the situation? For a fortnight or three weeks the public were fed under the patronage of the censorship with a series of preposterous reports, representing practically half of the Germans as being killed and the others as being in flight. Every day we had reports that the German soldiers were cowards, and that at the sight of the bayonet they ran away, or surrendered and were made prisoners. If that had been in ordinary times, without a censorship, the public would not have been affected so much as they were, after having been solemnly informed that they were not going to get anything in the way of news except gospel truth through the censorship; and the accounts which have been sent about the German soldiers almost suggested that the War was mere child's play.
There is one matter which is very serious indeed, and about which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) was extremely emphatic, and to which I wish to draw attention. I do say that, according to my experience, discrimination is made in 510 favour of the "Times" newspaper. I do not know whether that is true as regards the Press Bureau, but it is true as regards some other high Departments of the State. I have read carefully the extremely able and interesting articles published from time to time by the "Times" on the War by war correspondents, and I saw this week articles on the war containing information which' had not been given to the public. That is a monstrous thing, and most unjust and unfair to other newspapers of the country, whose editors, with admirable self restraint, have continually met the views of the Government as to keeping military secrets. It is monstrous that there should be any ground for even a suspicion of favouritism towards one journal as compared with others, particularly when this strict censorship is exercised. I will give an instance of the absurd way in which the Press censorship is exercised.
In Dublin the other day the newspapers were warned not to publish any facts connected with the movement of troops, and the newspapers, with one exception, obeyed the warning implicitly. The one newspaper which did not was told that steps would be taken if it published a paragraph of that kind again. There arrived in Dublin about a fortnight ago French and Belgian newspapers with full descriptions and photographs of the landing of British troops at Boulogne which would have been a subject of very great interest to this country. Why, in the name of common sense, could these descriptions and photographs be published in Belgium and not in the Irish and' English newspapers? Could it have been said that their publication here would have involved the betrayal of military secrets? Again it is our daily experience on taking up newspapers to come across certain omissions. You find it described that there was "a battle at — followed by a movement at —," and so on. Those are all places where encounters took place with-German troops. And it makes the newspapers ridiculous to censor the names of the places where those engagements took place, as if it was not known to the Germans where their own soldiers were fighting. That theory is really calculated to turn the Censor into absolute ridicule. 511 One thing I should say to the Govern ment and it is this. If they want to secure the co-operation of the Press and the public in carrying out the really necessary censorship they ought to be very careful to treat the Press and the public with fair play, common sense and indulgence. At the beginning of a war like this in the first few weeks it is very easy for the Govornment to obtain such amazing self-restraint and secrecy as has been secured in this country during the last three weeks, but as the War goes on it will be impossible to maintain such secrecy. We have had some striking examples in the Press during the last week of the results of the attempt to draw the lines too tight. Those articles in the "Times" are only one example—they are the worst—but there have been other articles of various kinds which are evidently more irresponsible and more misleading to the public than if the old system had been adhered to by allowing correspondents to go to the front, giving to the general officers absolute powers as regards censorship so as to allow no military secrets to escape. I agree that is absolutely necessary, and that the license given in previous wars is impossible and ought not to be repeated. I warn the Government, if they do not considerably modify the system of Press censorship now being carried on, the Press will break away, and the public will kick against it, and you will have a violent reaction set in before many weeks are over.