SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16153, 6 March 1918, Page 2

SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

XEW MILITARY ItULE /IN AUSTRALIA. "Officers and soldiers will be held responsible for all statements contained in communications to thoir friends which may subsequently be published m the Press." Above is printed the substance of a ncw-*niilit'ary regulation telegraphed to ; the Sydney "Sun" from Melbourne on February 23rd. This involves soldiers and officers m a spccial danger which is not shared by anybody else. \ soldier's letters are censored at the front. They aro subject to further censorship before they can be printed, as is shown by various sections in the published regulations under the War i rccautions Act. _ . Yet if a proud relative, having received a letter from a, soldier, should show it to a newspaper man, not suspecting that in it there is something to which the military authorities u}ay object, the unfortunato Bill-jim in the trenchcs thereupon becomes guilty of a crime. A soldier, when ho writes home, may have just come out of a bombardment. Ho is not likely to weigh accurate! v what will be censorablo in Australia, and what will not bo; nor are his relatives expert' in all tho intricacies of War Precautions Regulations and ccnsors' instructions. • Submission of a soldier's letter to a newspaper docs not mean printing itIt only means the further submission of the matter to the censor, whose judgment on the question of publication is final and unassailable. It should be possible to provide ample protection against the improper publication of military information without adding a new weight of punishment to BilJ-jim's heavy burden. If ''revelations" are to be made impossible, the War Department might look much nearer home. Yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr Hughes) gave to the Press, to the public, to the wholo world, and to Germany the information that for' some months the energies of Cockatoo 3>ock, Sydney, have been concentrated on the building of a cruiser, so that tho dock could not be used for mercantile shipping. The Prime Minister may have special reasons for explaining what we have done in naval matters; but it seems a hard contrast that while ho is permitted to make these disclosures, a nerve-shattered soldier may comc up for military .punishment because he writes (o tell Jiis mother what happened when the —th Regiment entered the fight at . —Sydney "Sun" of February 26th.