On February 27th last, M. Daladier gave orders that "
complete freedom of political opinion " should be permitted in the French Press. In so far as concerns French news- papers this promise has been more or less observed. Within the last three weeks papers such as the Temps and the Figaro have been permitted to print leading articles in which the existing administration has been taken severely to task. Yet this wise tolerance does not apply to the reports sent from Paris to our own newspapers in London. The Paris corre- spondents of our leading journals are men of experience and sense. They have no desire whatsoever to undermine the authority of the present French Government or to give the impression of a disunity which does not in fact exist. Yet they are constantly prevented by the French censorship from reporting to London facts or opinions which have already been published in Paris. And, since a frank interchange of criticism is essential if our union is to be anything more than a fiction, I regard such repression as unintelligent in the extreme.
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