The Press has grown singularly easy-tempered. We remember the time
when a code for newspaper correspondents such as that published in the Times of Tuesday, would have produced. a storm which would have blown the Commander-in-Chief out of office. The " code " is in fact an elaborate plan to abolish Army Correspondents, or compel them to write exactly what the Generals please. It consists of eighteen clauses, and each one is a new restriction. A correspondent must have a licence ; ho is placed under the Mutiny Act (a direct illegality, for which the General in command might be tried); he is forbidden to move without a badge, or to use any cypher, or to send home anything not supervised by the "Press Censor," a military officer. "10. The military censor has the power of obliging all communications sent by correspondents to their newspapers to go to their destination through him ; and should he deem the intelligence to be dangerous to the good of the army, he may stop it, or alter it. In the ease of telegrams, the military censor will generally exercise this power." It is made " illegal " for correspondents to use any method of communication outside military jurisdiction, and all editors are ordered. to adhere to the regulations before sending correspondents. And the London Press bears this quietly, without even an effort to punish the authors of the code, which will be quoted in the next European war as a final precedent.
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