One other point in the Report of the Select Committee
must be mentioned. Attention is drawn to the fact that the managing director of Reuter's Agency by virtue of his position in the Ministry of Information is connected with the payment of large sums of money from public funds to his own business. Reuter's Ageney Is a great business, established by its own efforts, and of course it must be employed on a grand Beale by the Government because no other agency covers quite the same ground. But we agree that it is unfortunate that an official of the Agency, even though he has resigned his position temporarily, should have been introduced into the Ministry. We have no means of knowing what the exact relation of the Government to Reuter's Agency is, but without particular reference to this case we must express our opinion that the dealings of the Government with the Press and with Press Agencies need careful watching. There has been a tendency for the Government to manipulate the expression of opinion. This is an entirely new thing in British politics, and it is both odious and dangerous. We have often pointed to instances of it in the policy of the Government towards Ireland and India. Recently the Ministry of Information conceived the idea of publishing a newspaper of its own, but fortunately abandoned it. It is difficult to imagine anything more likely to break up the Empire than to convey to the Dominions the Government's opinions and policy In the form of news. The Dominions would soon pass from suspicion to open indignation or revolt, and they would be perfectly right.
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