THE M.O.I. AND AFTER
HE Ministry of Information is a testimony to the capacity of men to learn and to, progress. The Press Bureau, Crewe ouse (concerned., with enemy propaganda) and other similar fficial and unofficial agencies did useful work in the last war, but e organisation and co-ordination in the Department of State over hich Mr. Brendan Bracken presides today is of an altogether ifferent order, and the account of his stewardship which Mr.
racken gave to the House of Commons last week in moving the nnual vote for the Ministry was spacious and impressive. It is uite true that such a Department may easily suffer from undue mescence. By the exigencies of circumstance it must be hastily of together, and in the first stages at any rate improvisation is ely to be more conspicuous than considered planning. Personnel as to be secured from where it can be, and in fact the earlier injsters of Information found themselves marshalling as best ey could a heterogeneous company of retired diplomats, ex- olonial administrators, journalists, authors and a variety of other persons less readily characterised. In time the necessary valedic- tions were taken and the necessary adjustments and adaptations made, but it is due to Mr. Brendan Bracken to recognise that the steady growth in the Ministry of Information's efficiency dates from the day in 1941 when he assumed control, though the Minister himself would be the first to insist on his debt to col- leagues like Sir Cyril Radcliffe, and many others. He has not been concerned to impress his own personality on the public by wireless addresses, though he is capable of making clear and force- ful speeches when occasion requires. But he thas directed a com- plicated niachine with tact, wisdom and ability.
The smoothness of relations between the Ministry of Informa- tion and the Press reflect as much credit on the latter as on the former. It is matter for considerable satisfaction that throughout the war the imposition of a compulsory censorship on the Press has been avoided, and that the only cases in which relations have been seriously strained have been, those leading to the temporary suspension of the Daily Worker and to a warning to the Daily Mirror—such action being taken, it may be noted, not by the Minister of Information, but by the Home Secretary under the Defence of the Realm regulations. There is, of course, a censor- ship of Tress messages to foreign countries, Allied or neutral ; that is essential in the interests of national security. But so sincere has been the co-operation between the papers of this country and the authorities that a private indication from the Ministry that the publication of a particular piece of news would be against the public interest has, in all but a few ,isolated cases of inadvertence, been sufficient to ensure that it was not published. Of ingenuity expended in attempts to " get past the censor " there has hardly been a trace. All that is highly satisfactory, but the Ministry of Information after all exists, not to suppress news but to dis- seminate it. Throughout the war its great responsibility has been the interpretation of Great Britain to our Allies and neutral countries. The importance of that is beyond all dispute. International under- standing can only be based on knowledge, and how comprehensive one country's ignorance of others can be we have realised during the last four years more perhaps than ever before.
It is not an easy matter to handle this -task effectively. Foreign countries are not given a good opinion of us by proclamations of our opinion of ourselves. Facts are one thing, opinions another. It is our business to provide the facts ; those for whom they are provided will form their own opinions on them. On the whole the Ministry of Information appears to have been follow- ing the right line here. It has tried in different ways to tell the world what the British people are like, what they have done and how they live. And it has realised the need for avoiding rigorously any slavery to stereotyped methods. Information suitable for one country will be by no means equally suitable for another. The United States, for example, has no need of ordinary information about Great Britain at all, and no use for it ; her capable news- paper correspondents in London look after all that very adequately. Consequently, as Mr. Bracken mentioned in the House, the British Information Service in New York is more of a reference office than a propaganda machine, answering an immense number of enquiries and doing a large amount of useful work ; it is primarily a question of finding means to disseminate. accurate information on certain special questions, such as the history of British rule and the future of British policy in India. For Russia other methods must be pursued. Here there is not the inestimable advantage of a common language. In Russia, moreover, in spite of the great increase in literacy in recent years, the pictorial appeal is still strong, and much can be, and is being, done, through such films as Desert Victory and In Which We Serve, to bring home to a great Allied people the realities of the British war-effort. It is significant that Mr. Bracken should be able to state that the weekly paper published (in Russian) by the Press Department of the Ministry of Information in Russia is estimated to have twelve readers for each copy. If the question of propaganda in enemy countries is not dis- cussed in detail here it is because that concerns primarily other Departments than the Ministry of Information, though it is con- ducted principally through the B.B.C., for which the Minister of Information is answerable in Parliament. As the writer of an article on a later page points out, much of this work -is carried on behind a veil, and therefore lacks the advantage of exposure to salutary criticism. What is known of part of this activity does not inspire confidence, but as things are it must be accepted ; it is arguable that a public controversy on the way to address Germany or Hungary or Bulgaria would be of doubtful value. But what is important is to know how far broadcasts to Germany are being adapted to the change in the military situation. The hopelessness of Germany's position is now a matter of almost mathematical demonstration—on such matters as the rival strengths in, and 'output of, aircraft it is actually mathematical—and no opportunity of demonstrating it should be missed. The number of German prisoners taken and German Generals killed or captured on all fronts in the past three weeks, the daily diminishing number of miles that separates the Russian armies from the German frontier, the growing power of the resistance movements every- where,—these are facts which should be, and it is to be hoped are being, driven, simply as hard facts, into the heads of listeners to broadcasts in German everywhere. And since the power of the Allies to make good their words is now indisputable, some very plain words might with advantage be used about Germany's resort to indiscriminate " secret weapons," and the resolve that those responsible shall be held to strict account.
Two questions remain to be asked regarding the Ministry of Information. Is there any sign that it is being subtly used to inculcate particular political doctrines at home? And what is to be the future of the Ministry when the war is over? The first question can be summarily answered ; there is no such danger. At home the Ministry's function is almost wholly nega- tive. It does not tell papers what to say ; any tendency in that direction would be so strongly resented that it would defeat itself signally. It exists to tell them what not to say, the check resting solely on the resolve that no scrap of news useful to the enemy shall be published ; the criterion is purely military, in no degree political. As to the future, it is certain that as soon a3 the war ends the Ministry in its present form will disappear ; whether, as a pure matter of convenience, some skeleton organisation is preserved for the distribution of various classes of official informa- tion is a question of little consequence. That the Press will and must resume a complete freedom which the Ministry in fact has done little to curtail is a thesis which needs no arguing. But this country needs to be interpreted to the world after the war as much as during the war. Sir Stephen Tallent's idea of " the projection of Britain " is worth cultivating, and of the inhabitants of many lands in many continents it may be asked in all seriobs- ness in the Prime Minister's words, " What sort of a people do they think we are? " It is worth while trying to tell them what we are, for there are qualities in this nation which all the world might study for its profit. But we do not need a Ministry of Information for that. The British Council has assumed the task and is discharging it well. It is the proper legatee of that portion of the Ministry's work.
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