of information which, by one channel or another, reaches the offices of the great dailies long before the Press Bureau gives a sign that it has even heard of the matters in question. The great retreat from Mons is an excellent instance. It was known perfectly well, at the time, that the entire British Expeditionary Force was in a position of the gravest peril, and it is, perhaps, not too much to say that had the public possessed the same knowledge there would have been a degree of depression which would have made the "black week" of the South African War gay and cheerful by comparison, even if there had not been something very nearly approaching an actual panic.
But the secret was well and loyally kept within the walls of the newspaper offices, as I, personally, think it should have been: I do not blame the military authorities in the least for holding back the fact that the position was one of extreme gravity. Bad news comes soon enough in every war, and it would be senseless folly to create alarm by telling people of dangers which, as in this case, may in the end be averted. The public quarrel with the censorship rests on other, and totally different, grounds.
That a strict censorship should be exercised over military news which might prove of value to the enemy will be cheerfully admitted by every one. We all know, despite official assurances to the contrary, that German spies are still active in our midst, and, even now, there is—or at any rate until quite recently there was—little or no difficulty in sending information from this country to Germany. No one will cavil at any restrictions necessary to prevent the enemy anticipating our plans and movements, and if the censorship had not gone beyond this, no one would have had any reason to complain.
