Publicity and the Press The report of the Committee on
the Cost of Home Information Services is an unimpressive document. Its recommendations amount to little apart from various injunctions to economy and one rather severe remark to the effect that the reduction in the Estimates for 1949-50 (£175,000 lower than the £5,076,100 for 1948-9) was "
/filch smaller than we had hoped." Mr. Morrison, however, an- nounced in the House on Tuesday a reduction of nearly £700,000 PI the current financial year and of nearly £1,200,000 in the esti- mates for 1949-50. This is by no means negligible, and the decision is to be welcomed. The Committee approves generally the present arrangement under which the Central Office of Information and &le Public Relations Officers are responsible for practically the vhole of official information in the domcstic field, though it notes tie not unjustified criticism that the P.R.O.s tend almost inevitably o become apologists for their several departments. The recom- nendation that expenditure on Press and poster advertising should e reduced should be read in connection with the suggestion that a ilinisterial speech or Press conference may be equally effective. The implication that the papers can be persuaded to publish free n their news columns announcements which Ministries have titherto been paying for in the advertisement columns is a naive :omment on the systematic abuse which Ministers are regularly 1irecting at the Press in their Sunday speeches.
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