Government and Editors.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 263, 15 November 1901, Page 3

Government and Editors.

London, Oct. i>. The attempt of the British Cabinet to punish the Daily Mail for publishing War Office confidential documents by cutting oft' its supply of official information signally failed. The Daily Mail continued to publish all the official news as before, having threatened the news agencies with suits for breach of contract if they failed to supply it. The Times, too, is in the black books of the Ministers because it persists in publishing reports of the Parliamentary committees, not merely before they are issued to the members but before they have been revised by the committees concerned. It is suspected that there is an underground connection between the Times and the poorest grade of officials, who supply it with these documents.

As a result the Speaker of the House of Commons, whose disciplinary powers are absolute in such matters, is framing a rule under which any journal that publishes the contents of any Parliamentary paper before it is issued in the usual way to members will be denied the privileges of entry into the Houses of Parliament. This, of course, is as silly as War Secretary Brodrick’s abortive effort to punish the Daily Mail. Alfred Harmsworth, as a mark of his sense of the way in which he has been treated by Ministers, to whom the Mail was a most valuable ally, has resigned his membership in the Carlton Club, the headquarters of Toryism.