CENSOR'S AIM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 142, 3 April 1940, Page 2

CENSOR'S AIM

ENDEAVOUR TO GIVE TRUTH WITHOUT STATE SECRETS Sir Walter Monckton, DirectorGeneral of the Press and Censorship Bureau, recently expressed his appreciation ol the friendly relations he had with the Press. Speaking at a luncheon of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers in London, he said: 'If I had not got the friendliest relations with the Press they cquld make a fool of me every day and every night, pillory me in every paper and have me out in a weeknot that 1 would mind going back to the Bar in some ways—but they do not."' Explaining why weather reports are banned,, he said: "I have had a good deal of correspondence about hiding the fact that the sun has been shining sc.Avarmly during this last month that Ave have all taken our coats off and are Avalking about in our shirt-sleeves. ''I am advised by the departments concerned that, if you give information about the A\ r eather in this country for some days on end, for a considerable period after that, it may be five days or a little more;, an intelligent meteorological expert can forecast with reasonable iaccur* acy Avhat the weather is likely to be in the days that folloAV." Keeping the Enemy Guessing". "My job now is tb see to it that, Avhile I ensure and permit people i-o speak the truth as they see- it, they leave out just those things which the enemy Avant to know. "We sit there not to prevent people saying Avhat they Avant to say, not to interfere betAveen the public and the truth, but to provide an ally Avliich every honest and patriotic Pressman Avelcomes. "We are there to help the public to get the truth and to help the Press to do their patriotic duty of giving the truth to the public without danger to the State^. "People have complained to me that it is a strange thing that the Germans ahvays have the iicavs first. They do have something first, but Avlien a communique comes out from one of our departments of State I may complain that it is sloav, but I have seldom had to complain that it was not true. "We must bear with a little sloavness so that Avhat the world gets from us can be relied upon as representing the truth,, the whole ' truth, and nothing but the truth."