at the best is slight; but far other than slight is the loss in public interest, in the necessary stimulation of public effort, in confidence, and in half a dozen other things essential to victory in war. Irritating as half-informed press criticism upon war events may be to the principal actors concerned, it is, however bad, an earnest of that public interest which is an absolutely essential concomitant to a successful national war. And it is difficult to lay a finger on any form of secrecy that can be found entirely free from an official desire to avoid criticism.
Criticism of individual leaders is, however, more altogether bad than aught else. It is bad, because the effect upon a fleet of reading hostile criticisms on its admiral can only be deleterious, can only tend to shake confidence without supplying any substitute. This was just the one thing that the much-admired Japanese Press Laws failed to touch. When Kamimura was unable to find the Vladivostok cruisers in a thick fog, Tokio criticisms ran high and violent. Kamimura's house was either actually burned, or threatened to be burned, by an angry mob, and the news of such a proceeding cannot have fortified the confidence of his men in him. Again, because the Japanese were Japanese, no very serious danger resulted—but it might have. Partially informed civilian criticism is in this respect a grave possible danger, and a law forbidding criticism of admirals until some while after the event might prove very
