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might be legitimately claimed by us to be precautionary only, might be considered to be provocative by the Power with whom we were in dispute, and on the other hand, they might alarm unnecessarily the civil population and lead to internal disorder, especially if they coincided with labour and similar troubles. It is not, of course, possible entirely to conceal the fact that such precautionary measures are being taken, but a temporary concealment is feasible and a great deal may be gained by delay at the initial stages of preparation for defence. The chief obstacle in the way of securing concealment lies, of course, in the newspaper Press and in its freedom from Governmental control.
While these considerations were being debated at the sub-committee, and before a conclusion had been reached, the crisis of the summer of 1911 occurred, and the War Office had occasion to go more closely into the question of the control of the Press. Certain newspapers published items of military news which it was obviously contrary to the public interest to make generally known, especially at that moment, and verbal remonstrances were addressed to the editors. Apologies were freely forthcoming, but the War Office authorities were impressed with their helplessness in the matter, and it was clear to them that no strong reliance could be placed upon any scheme of precautionary measures unless some special measures for dealing with the Press could be included.
There appeared to be two alternatives open; one was some form of statutory control, and the other a friendly arrangement with the dominant Press interests. The former was being considered by a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and seemed, moreover, not to be a suitable method of securing the silence of the newspapers before the actual outbreak of the war. The authorities accordingly decided to attempt the latter.
Being in charge, at the War Office, under the head of the department, of the work of communicating with the Press, and being also the member of the permanent staff of the office representing it on the standing sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence dealing with the co-ordination of departmental action in war time, I was commissioned by the Secretary of State for War to open up negotiations with the leading Press interests, and of this the Secretary of the Admiralty and the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence were duly informed.
I discussed the question, first with Mr. Nicholson, the Managing Director of The Times, of whose interest in the matter I was assured privately, and whose influence with Lord Northcliffe seemed to give a special value to any support that we could secure from him. His first suggestion was that the authorities might consider whether all publication of war news might not be forbidden. I explained that this was hardly within the scope of my instructions, but that I doubted whether any Government would take such an extreme step, and whether, if they did, it would not do more harm than good by giving occasion for dissemination of wild and fantastic rumours based on leakages of scraps of information and on malicious perversions of the truth-that however was only my own personal opinion. We then debated the possibility of setting up some body representative of the important Press interests with whom the Admiralty and the War Office could agree, from time to time, as to the suppression of news the publication of which would be detrimental to the public interest. And I discussed the same possibility with Mr. Amery, M.P., whose criticism, as a former war correspondent, of some draft regulations for correspondents with an army in the field I had been permitted to invite. Later, Mr. Geoffrey Robinson was a party to these discussions. At first I was disposed to seek in the Newspaper Society the body which would serve the purpose; but all three agreed that that Society existed rather for other purposes, and was, moreover, not representative (The Times, for instance, not being connected with it). They advised that the interests which we ought to secure the co-operation of were rather the proprietors than the editors or journalists. The first named were better organized and, what was more important, had more complete control of the Press. Mr. Robinson suggested that I should get into touch with the Empire Press Union, which was a comparatively young and therefore vigorous body, and was composed of proprietors or their nominees.
While these discussions were in progress, it became necessary, or at any rate most advisable if it could be done, to arrange for the Press to refrain from publishing information as to some embarkation exercises with mounted troops which the military authorities desired to carry out at Southampton with a view to effecting certain improvements in the schemes for despatching the Expeditionary Force when required. After consultation with Sir Graham Greene at the Admiralty, I made the necessary arrangements with the Newspaper Society, with which the Admiralty had dealt in a previous similar case, and complete success was attained. The method adopted was as
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