REACHING THE PUBLIC
Government Publicity (The Minister of Health) ..
The Press and Propaganda (Sir Norman Angell) ..
Fylribitions and the Public (The Secretary of State for Scotland.) Bias in Broadcasting (Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P.) Documentary Films (Sir Stephen Tallents) Ideas in the Cinema (Graham Greene) Totalitarian Propaganda (William Teeling) The Psychology of Advertising (Dorothy L. Sayers) The Controversial in Education (Sir Ernest Simon)
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GOVERNMENT PUBLICITY
By THE RT. HON. SIR KINGSLEY WOOD. M.P.
THE Government often occupies the same place in relation to the public as purveyors of goods and services in relation to the consumer, with one significant difference. Government exists solely for the good of the governed, so that the interest of the latter is the sole justification for the operations of the former—that is the doctrine at the basis of our own democracy—whereas in the world of ordinary com- merce the legitimate interests of the purveyor have some- times to be reconciled with those of the consumer. This difference affects the present subject, for it follows that Government publicity should not have, and must avoid any ground which might give rise to suspicion of, any other motive than the desire to give information which it is in the interests of the governed to possess and utilise.
We may approach the matter from another angle. The public desire certain ends, but it is no business of theirs to devise the means to those ends—that is what in many spheres they elect a Government to do. To take two examples within my own departmental experience—the public wish mothers and babies to be healthy ; the public also wish to have an efficient telephone system. It is for the Government —and in this I include the popularly elected local authorities as well as the Cabinet at Westminster—to meet the first demand by developing and maintaining or assisting maternity and child-welfare services, which reinforce the family doctor by providing centres, clinics, health visitors and midwives, and to meet the second by providing an adequate telephone service complete with switchboards, cables and operators.
So far so good, but the Government's duty does not end here, particularly in a complex modern community like our own. The public need is not met by the mere provision of such services as I have mentioned ; the Government has only done a portion of its duty if it does not also take steps to ensure that the public know what facilities exist and how to make use of them. Moreover, the old " take it or leave it " attitude which used, rightly or wrongly, to be ascribed to Whitehall was certainly inefficient ; it was like building a house and providing no access to it. At this point we approach a basic theory of advertising—namely, that you must believe that a thing is useful before you will use it and you must know that a thitig exists before you can use it. It is not enough for healtl, administrators to lament the fact that only half the prospective mothers of this country seek any kind of medical advice before their confinements ; part of their job is to persuade every one of these mothers, if possible, that she would be wise to get ante-natal advice, and to tell her where that advice can be got. I give this example because it has a prominent place in the National Health Campaign now in progress.
Moreover, a wider knowledge of the innumerable ramifica- tions of modem Government activity has more than the immediate effect ; it certainly helps to make the citizen more conscious of his citizenship in a free community. So much for Government publicity where the direct interest of the public is immediately obvious. Let us now look at the matter from the point of view of those who have to provide the services in question—the doctor or the health visitor, the postman or the telephone operator. The public are entitled to the services ; but those who administer them may fairly claim in return the full co-operation of those whom they serve. An example from the child welfare service is the weighing of babies at regular intervals. This is an excellent test of a baby's general health and growth, and scales are duly provided at the local clinics and centres The mothers themselves may reasonably be asked to co-operate by attending regularly in order to have their babies weighed. Publicity can be very useful in obtaining co-operation of this kind ; a familiar instance is the exhorta- tion on Post Office cancellation marks to " Post Early." In so far as it is successful the efficiency of the service is improved, which is surely in the interests of the public themselves.
Government publicity about public services has long existed in germ, but it is only recently that it has begun to be properly developed as Department after Department has come to realise how effectively modern methods of publicity can be used to assist its everyday work.
There is, however, one sphere in which Government publicity may do well to proceed with some care and caution—that of the private life and habits of the individual. In matters of health especially this sphere is a large one, but those who are tempted to think that the Government ought to pronounce in favour of the individual's doing this or refraining from that are apt to overlook the fact that " one man's meat is another man's poison." This aspect should not, however, deter public authorities, central and local, from giving the public a good deal more Health Education than has hitherto been the rule.
These are some of the fields open to legitimate Govern- ment publicity, but there are two special conditions which Government publicity must always observe. The first is a practical one. Government publicity cannot afford to do other than aim at the best. Posters, films and exhibitions, which are sponsored by public authorities, are exposed to much fiercer artistic and technical criticism than thos...: produced by private agencies, and if the criticism is adverse the effect is correspondingly more damaging in the long run. The second condition is moral as well as practical. As a democrat I believe that Government publicity should be devoted to the facts of the case. Englishmen have no use for the activities of Propaganda Ministries as they are understood in some countries today. In this, as in other things, honesty is not only right in itself ; it is also the best policy, and Government publicity is being undertaken in close harmony with this conception. The facts are left, and rightly left, to speak for themselves.
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