THE CENSORSHIP.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16412, 4 January 1919, Page 10

THE CENSORSHIP.

ADMIRAL SIMS'S CRITICISM.

An interesting comment on the British censorship was made by Admiral Sims, the American Naval Commander, at a dinner given in London to American pressmen a few weeks ago. Admiral Sims, who was received with loud cheers, said everybody in Great Britain was down on the Censor, but much of the criticism of that official was unjust—(Oh, oh! and laughter)— because he had to draw a general rule jfrhich must cmbrace all classes of people, including scoundrels and fools. That made the application of the general rule pretty hard on sensible people. They knew, now that the British censorship had been largely a mistake in not giving out enough information, in order that all might know what the war \ya» about and what the conditions were. When he came to this country eighteen months ago all that he had seen in the American papers was what had passed through the English censorship. The consequence was that the ignorance in America was lamentable, and had kept his country out. of the waT longer than she would have" kept ont of it. The censorship kept out of the Press lots of stuff which the Germans knew more about than the British public, and. that was very detrimental to the Americans. When they came to this country, and saw what' the actual conditions were, and then sent back their reports, they were accused of being so pro-British as not- to know what they were about. That continued until the House Mission came over, ■ about seven months afterwards, and when the members of that mission went back they made Americans' hair 6tand on end, and they knew what it was all about. • _ The Admiral paid a high .tribute to the integrity of the American Press, and said it. had never "let him down" yet. There was no censorship "on the other side," and his people played: the game to the beat of their ability. It " was unfortunate for them that they did not have a censorship in America, because there was nobody to regulate what appeared in the Press. One consequence of this was that the people there got the idea that the Atlantio was swarming with German submarines, and that they were attacking their convoys in flotillas. It was only recently that the American people had begun to understand what sea-power meant. The world was now witnessing one of the most impressive exhibitions of sea-power that, history had ever recorded. Before they | had adopted the, plan of putting a double screen round convoys, Germany was so suro of her ground that she stopped building submarines,, believing that she had enough. It was that practice that had broken down the submarine campaign. The loss of nearly one million tons a month would have finished the war for us before the winter of 1917. The cbnvoy system, th t e dreadful depth charge, invented by the British, all the machinery and method by which they had been able to turn down the submarine campaign—those were inaugurated under Admiral Jellicoe just before he was "fired out." (Cheers.) If the Grand Fleet had 'been engulfed, down would hagone the house, because the German fleet would have come out with battle-cruisers, and chased all the small craft into port or sunk them. If at Jutland all the battle-cruisers had been lost the sixty battleships would not have saved the situation. All these things had not been understood on the other side of th© Atlantic. They had been understood pretty thoroughly on this side. It was up to the American editors to soe they were understood in America. (Cheers.)