CAB38-23 — Page 69

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(2.) The owner, publisher, and editor of any newspaper, magazine, book, pamphlet, or other publication by means of which any information, statement, comment, or suggestion is knowingly published in contravention of this Act, and any other person who knowingly sells any newspaper, magazine, book, pamphlet, or other publication containing, or who is otherwise knowingly responsible for the publication of, any such information, statement, comment, or suggestion, shall severally be liable in respect of each offence, on conviction or indictment, to a fine not exceeding a thousand pounds, or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding twelve months. A court of quarter sessions shall not have jurisdiction to try a person charged with an offence under this section.

(3.) If any person is charged before a justice with an offence under this Act, no further proceeding shall be taken against that person without the consent of the Attorney-General or Solicitor-General, except such as the justice may think necessary, by remand or otherwise, to secure the safe custody of that person.

(4) The expenses of the prosecution of an offence under this Act shall be defrayed in like manner as in a case of felony.

2.-(1.) His Majesty may, by Order in Council, declare that this Act shall be in Power to force in any case of emergency in which it appears to him that the publication of put Act in information prohibited by this Act might be prejudicial to the interests of the realm, Order in force by and any Order so made may be revoked by any subsequent Order.

(2.) This Act shall have effect only while an Order in Council declaring the Act to be in force is in operation; but any legal proceedings may be instituted, continued, or enforced, and any penalty or punishment may be imposed, in respect of an offence under this Act committed while the Act was in force, although the Örder in Council in pursuance of which the Act was in force is no longer in operation.

Council.

3.-(1.) This Act shall extend to the whole of the British Islands, and the Royal Extent and Courts of the Channel Islands shall register this Act accordingly.

application of Act

(2.) In the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, offences may be prosecuted, fines recovered, and proceedings taken under this Act in such courts and in such manner as may for the time being be provided in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man by law or, if no such express provision is made, then in and before the courts and in the manner in which the like offences, fines, aud proceedings may be prosecuted, recovered, or taken therein by law, or as near thereto as circumstances admit.

(3.) As respects prosecutions in Scotland, the Lord Advocate, and as respects prosecutions in Ireland, the Attorney-General or Solicitor-General for Ireland, and as respects prosecutions in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, the person who exercises in those Islands respectively the like functions as the Attorney-General in England shall be substituted for the Attorney or Solicitor-General.

4. This Act may be cited as "The Publication of Naval and Military Information Short title. Act, 1908."

Appendix IV.

(I.)

MEMORANDUM ON THE FORMATION OF A STANDING COMMITTEE OF OFFICIAL AND PRESS REPRESENTATIVES TO DEAL WITH THE PUBLICATION OF NAVAL AND MILITARY NEWS IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY.

Secretary of State,

The discussions at the meetings of the standing sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence which deals with the co-ordination of departmental action on the outbreak of war, brought prominently to notice a certain weakness in the system of the precautionary measures to be adopted in the period of tension or strained relations which might be anticipated before an actual outbreak of war between this country and a toreign Power. This weakness is two-fold. An essential act of precaution consists in certain movements of troops. On the one hand, these movements, though they

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