The Committee's Report and a recent article in the Westminster
Gazette were made the basis of an attack on the Ministry of Informa- tion, in the House of Commons on Monday. Some of the criticism was very wide of the mark. The suggestion that picture shows were inferior to books as propaganda, and were in some way degrading to the country, showed a really amazing ignorance of the universal appeal of the film. Mr. Baldwin, replying for the Government, said that the Committee dealt mainly with the mistakes made before the Ministry of Information was set up. The expenditure for the current year would not be extravagant, and the Treasury would, he hoped, exercise " a very substantial" control. Germany was spending some seven or eight times as much on propaganda as we were. The work was very like the anti-submarine campaign, in that it must be judged by results. Mr. Baldwin defended Lord Beaver- brook's choice Of unpaid• business men to advise him as to the best kind of propaganda to adopt In each country. If he had appointed Civil Servants, said. Mr. Baldwin, he would have been told to have business men and not bureaucrats ; as he had appointed business men, it was said that he "had surrounded himself with black- guards." Mr. Baldwin said that the Ministry was not going to conduct a soldiers' newspaper to further the political interests of the Government.
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