WAR AND THE PRESS.
WHEN Mr. Churchill paid a high compliment in the House of Commons to the British newspapers he said no more than was deserved. The newspapers are now under control by law, and we need not specially praise them for a reticence and a public spirit which are exacted of them. At the same time, there has obviously been no attempt whatever by them to dodge the letter of the law, or to give themselves the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous circumstances—a benefit which might aid a newspaper greatly in competition with its rivals. The chief merit of the newspapers, however, was their conduct during what Mr. Churchill called the precautionary period, before war was declared. Then there was no fear of statutory penalties, yet the entire Press voluntarily observed. a silence that was one of the most remarkable things we can remember. If we had not experienced it, we could. not have believed that such secretiveness in a country like ours—which multiplies the hundred tongues of rumour— would have been possible. We heard much of Japanese reticence during the Russo-Japanese War, but it does not now seem to have been more remarkable than our own. The words "Expeditionary Force" ceased to exist for every British newspaper. What is the explanation of the faithful service which the newspapers have rendered to their country ? It is simply that at last Ministers have been sensible enough to take the Press into their confidence, tell editors what was being done, and ask them to mention no subject on which publicity would injure the plans of the War Office and the Admiralty. The result was the complete success we have witnessed. If any member of the Government was more responsible than another for this piece of great practical wisdom, it was, we believe, Mr. Winston Churchill_ He was himself a special correspondent in the South African War, and consequently formed an opinion of the essential decency of editors which seems to have been beyond the grasp of his predecessors. When one comes to think of it, it is strange that the situation should have been misread for so many years. One would think that it would have been patent to any one who took the trouble to examine the facts that even the less reputable newspapers commit errors, not because they want to be unpatriotic, but because the temptation to outrun their rivals in the race for news is too strong for them. It is absurd to suppose that papers which print leading articles in and out of season imploring- the Government of the day to strengthen the Navy, or increase the Army. or rearm the Artillery are really unpatriotic at heart. Yet there has been a long succession of Ministers, Admirals, and Generals who seemed to think, not only that this supposition might fairly be made, but that it might advantageously be acted upon. The fact is that the two motives which inspire the conduct of a newspaper—the desire to serve the country-, and the- commercial desire to serve itself—are in continual conflict. Fossilized administrators at the Admiralty and the War Office have in the past recognized the latter desire, but over- looked the first. Yet all the time, as we have ventured to point out before now, it was quite easy to conserve the first and kill the second by the simple device of trusting newspapers and putting them on their honour. Tell a self-respecting man a. secret and accept his pledge not to repeat it, and he would feel disgraced for ever if it appeared in his newspaper. That is only human nature. The whole dangerous area—the area of injurious com- petition among newspapers in telling war secrets— can be ruled out by pledging all the proprietors and editors simultaneously. The only-point ever in doubt was whether the editors and proprietors would be willing to be appealed to or pledged for the precautionary period. That doubt disposed of, the success of the plan was certain. Delano used to say, indeed, that one of the things he chiefly dreaded was that people might tell him political secrets. When he was weak enough to listen to a secret he was instantly muzzled. He could make no use of it. " Yet," as he said "I probably should have heard it in any case without any obligations of secrecy." One is inclined to doubt now- whether soldiers, sailors, or politicians in high positions in the past who did not recognize that the Press, as an. enormous existing power for good or ill, ought to be used- in the right way (lest it should itself decide to behave in the wrong way) were fit to guide their country through a great crisis. Their knowledge of human nature was insufficient. We may be thankful that the times have changed, and that such persons are not now in control. The Press has been given its opportunity of self-suppression, and has used it nobly.
In what we have written we have not left out of mind the dangers of a too intimate relation between any public Service and the Press. We all know and despise the " advertising " officer, and we have all beard of that sort of official who feeds the journalist with valuable information on the understanding that the- journalist shall crack up his patron's theories in the Press. The process is scarcely dis- tiuguishable from blackmail. Now there is a Press Bureau in full blast, and though we think it has a useful and steady- ing influence at present—nothing could be mere sober and well balanced than these journalistic productions of Mr. F. E. Smith—we trust it will never be allowed to become a precedent for any attempt on the part of a Government to confuse opinions and facts. It is all too easy for a Government to make use of such an institution as a Press Bureau if it wants to gain currency and popularity for certain ideas. In Germany the " official " Press and the con- tinuance of the Bismarckian method of using the Press are, we can say without exaggeration, one of the chief supports of the vile diplomacy which has involved Europe in war. The Times informed its readers on. Wednesday of a curious German manoeuvre which proves Bismarck's methods to be as much alive as ever. It received from a German, in close relations with the- Emperor, a letter expressing profound surprise and pain at the thought that Englishmen should believe the Emperor capable- of disturbing the peace of Europe. This letter was timed to be published on the day (August 3rd) on- which Sir Edward Grey made his memorable statement in the House- of Commons. The editor of the Times, finding that the assertions in the letter were at complete variance with what he knew to be the truth, decided not to publish it. On the night of August 3rd the Times received, by a pure accident, from the well-known German Official Press Agency (the Wolff Bureau)- a, telegram which was intended for an agent of that Bureau. in London_ The telegram informed the agent that the Times would be publishing a letter from a well-known. german public man and instructed him to telegraph it word for word back to Germany. The author of the letter had evidently informed the Official Agency of what he had done, or the German Government had themselves prompted the letter. If it had been telegraphed back to Germany, it would have had the authority of having been printed in the Times, and would seem to Germans to have something of the value of independent evidence. One is reminded of the expedients of Bismarck as described in Herr Busch's diary—a work of which the genuineness is admitted.
Let us quote some passages from that illuminating book. Busch was an official in the Foreign Office, and was employed for years by Bismarck in " working the Press." In 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-German War, Busch wrote :— " Read over to the Minister [Bismarck], at his request, an article which he ordered yesterday and for which he gave me the leading ideas. It was to be dated from Paris and published in the Kignische Zeitung. He said : 'Yes, you have correctly expressed my meaning. The composition is good both as regards its reasoning and the facts which it contains. But no Frenchman thinks in such logical and well-ordered fashion, yet the letter is understood to be written by a Frenchman. It must contain more gossip, and you must pass more lightly from point to point. In doing so you must adopt an altogether French standpoint. A Liberal Parisian writes the letter and gives his opinion as to the position of his party towards the German question, expressing himself in the manner usual in statements of that kind.' (Finally Count Bismarck dictated the greater part of the article, which was for- warded by Metzler in its altered form to the Rhenish news.. paper.) " Imagine a British Minister fabricating a letter from abroad and sending it to a newspaper in order to influence public opiniou! On another day Busch records that he met Bismarck in his garden, and continues as follows :- " He stopped in his walk as I came up to him, and said : wish you to write something in the Krausiseitung against the Hanoverian nobles. It must come from the provinces, from a nobleman living in the country, an Old Prussian—very blunt, somewhat in this style : It is reported that several Hanoverian nobles have endeavoured to find pilots and spies in the North Sea for French men-of-war. The arrests made within the last few days with the assistance of the military authorities are under- stood to be connected with this affair. The conduct of those Hanoverians is infamous, and I certainly express the sentiments of all my neighbours when I put the following questions to the Hanoverian nobles who sympathize with those traitors. Have they any doubt, I would ask them, that a man of honour could not now regard such men as entitled to demand honourable satis- faction by arms whether their unpatriotic action was or was not undertaken at the bidding of King George ? ' " No doubt Busch was more at his ease at impersonating the blunt Old Prussian than at getting inside the soul of the French Liberal. There are many other examples of this sort in the diary. Yet we have been quite solemnly reproached by well-meaning Englishmen within recent years for expressing our belief that the instigator and part-author of these fabrications really falsified the Ems telegram ! But probably few would reproach us to-day. The scales have fallen from many eyes. We do not suggest, of course, that any official Press Bureau in England would ever be used for the purposes for which Bismarck manipulated the German Press. Still, there would be danger of a sort if Ministers, who are peculiarly exposed to public criticism, happened to have an official Press agency at their disposal at an awkward moment. With this reservation, we have nothing but praise for the manner in which the publicity—or should we say " secrecy " ?—of the present war has been conducted.
Previous page
