for her to take the first chance of peace at almost any price. In such a case the policy of press-muzzling during the war might have had very serious results indeed, for how could a public fed on long tales of victory have been induced to accept the consequences of defeat?
Coming nearer home it is easy to see both sides of the question in bolder relief. The Japanese navy neither in size nor importance can be compared with the British or American navies. The number of people directly interested in the fleet in England is very much larger—at least a million people coming under the heads of relatives or close friends of naval men. The operations of a Press Censorship would seriously affect this considerable section of the community were the censorship anything but a sham. Any official censor of news may be depended upon to go on the principle 'When in doubt cut out.' 'Newsy scraps' and excellent stuff for headlines mean nothing to him, nothing has any meaning except that should anything but the baldest and most useless information leak out he is likely to get into trouble over it. Hence many of the censor's vagaries. His superiors behind him have probably an inherent dislike for publicity of any sort, at any rate for that publicity which is attained through being criticised. The whole training of an admiral—the most necessary training in all probability—is to place him on a pedestal even to himself, and criticism of any kind, merited or unmerited, strikes him as pure
