UNJUSTIFIABLE INTERFERENCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 57, 2 December 1918, Page 4

UNJUSTIFIABLE INTERFERENCE

About a fortnight ago we pointed out that in this country the news that an armistice had been signed with Germany was not made available to the public promptly, but was unjustifiably held back for reasons which have not been satisfactorily explained. Australian papers which have just arrived by a delayed mail put the facts in the clearest possible light. It will be remembered that the armistice news was announced here at 9 a.m.' on Tuesday, November 12. The same news was made public in Sydney very shortly after seven o'clock on the previous evening. The Sydney Daily Telegraph of November 12 supplies the information that the armistice cablegram—an urgent message from Vancouver—arrived "just at 7 o'clock" on Monday evening, and that by 7.30 "extras" containing the news were being sold in the streets. Allowing for the difference in time, the nows was being

scattered broadcast in Australia a good twelve hours before it was allowed to reach the New Zealand public. In ordinary course a Press Association cablegram convoying fcho news would have arrived in the Dominion before 9 p.m., and at tho time the conditions of cable transmission were normal. Thus far the Government, has offered no explanation of the delay, but. manifestly an explanation is called for. On the evening of November 10 the PfiiME Minister repeated an assurance that when news (of an armistice), came it would he made public as quickly as possible. Actually, as has been said, the news was held up until about twelve hours after it might have been expected to arrive in ordinary course. "With strange perversity the authorities put no obstacle in the way of the publication of an erroneous message transmitted a few days earlier, but they went out of their way to keep back the real news from an anxiously waiting community. Tlic authenticity of the blocked message was not in question. Obviously no military purpose, or legitimate purpose of any kind, was served by holding it up, and it should have been made public as promptly hero as it was in Australia and no doubt was in London and elsewhere throughout the Empire. The. public are entitled to an assurance that no similar dclaf which it is - in ,-thc power of the Government to avert will occur in future. Apart from the fact that the interference with the free passage of the armistice news was absolutely without justification, it had the effect of depriving the community of an opportunity of making orderly preparations for a day of celebration, and so occasioned, quite unnecessarily, a great deal of inconvenience and some loss to business people and those engaged in industry,