It is not only the amateur spy-maniac who is a
public nuisance_ We must be vigilant about spy-mania in official quarters. Unquestionably a certain reticence is fitting in war-time and it is wrong to blab about military or naval movements in public places. During the last war the French posted notices in all restaurants: " Taisez-vous ! Mefiez-vous ! Les oreilles ennemies vous ecoutent! " They may have been justified in this warning, but there is a middle way between the discouragement of indiscretion and the suppression of ordinary human conversation. It irritates me to be obliged, when asked by a friend whether my son is in training at Windsor or Caterham, to glance to right and left before giving a reply. If we allow discretion to become exaggerated, we shall all acquire by the end of the war the Ogpu or the Gestapo turn of the head. The furtive dread of being overheard is not the mark of a free people.
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