HOW STATE SECRETS LEAK OUT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOW STATE SECRETS LEAK OUT.

INDISCREET MINISTERS. However carefully a Cabinet may guard its secrets, they will at times leak out, often from the most trivial and accidental causes. And yet it would seem impossible to keep them inviolate. The Council Chamber in which our Cabinet holds its sittings is protected from eavesdropping by double doors and double windows; it is at the end of a long corridor into which no servant or attendant is allowed to set foot. Eveny important paper in our offices of State is as jealously watched as if it were a foreign spy, and none but the highest and most responsible officials is allowed to see it. If copies of it are required, the printing is entrusted to one man only—an old and confidential compositor who does his work in the utmost secrecy in a remote room of the Foreign Office. When it is necessary to print a dozen copies of the rough draft of the Home Rule Bill of 1893 for the use of members of the Cabinet, and the work could not be done expeditiously enough by the Foreign Office compositor, the copy was minutely cut up and distributed "among a large number of compositors, each of whom had only three lines to put into type; and when the dozen proofs were pulled the type was immediately broken up. And yet all these precautions for secrecy were nullified by the carelessness of one Minister who left his copy within an hour of receiving it on a writingtable at the Reform Club, where it was found by a member of the cftib. Fortunately the finder was a man of honour; he placed the draft Bill in an envelope and returned it at once to its owner.

UPSETTING THE GOVERNMENT COACH.

And this is only one of many such cases where a Minister's carelessness has upset all precautions to keep a State Secret. In May, 1834, "The Times" startled the world with the an. nouncement that the great Reform Ministry was on the point of breaking up. A'few dajs earlier, during a discussion of the Tithe Commutation Bill, when Mr. Stanley declared that the Cabinet had no intention of appropriating any part of the Irish revenues to secular purposes, Lord John Russell had risen and flatly contradicted his brother Minister, assuring the House that the Government was not pledged to any such policy. Stanley, thereupon, wrote on a slip of paper'the words " Johnny has upset the Government catch,' and passed note to his colleague, Sir James Graham. This note Sir James put into his waistcoat pocket, where it was discovered by his inquisitive valet. The valet promptly took it to " The Times" office, which published it the following dav, thus disclosing to the world the fact that there was a serious cleavage in the ranks of the Cabinet.

It was an act of equal carelessness that was responsible a little later for a serious scandal which for a time endangered the Cabinet. One of the leading Irish officials wrote a letter in a Dubl : n Hotel, drying it on a sheet of new blotting-paper. One of the guests of the hotel who took his seat a little later at the same writing-table, was attracted by the impression on the blotting pad, examined it, and was astonished to rmd m trie signature the name of a very prominent official. Tearing off the sheet, he carried it to his bedroom, and with the help of a mirror had no difficulty in deciphering the entire letter, which was. a scathing criticism and concfemw*tion of the action of certain members of the Cabinet responsible for the government of Ireland. The follow:ng day the letter was published to the worrd by "United Ireland"; and its revelations aroused such a storm of popular feeling as threatened the very existence of the Cabinet, and swept the careless letter-writer from his post. Of all the Ministers who have served the Crown not one has a more unenviable reputation for betraying State Secrets than Lord Brougham, of whose indiscretions the following stories are told.

On November loth, 1834, "The Times" created a great sensation by announcing that William IV. had sun.marily dismissed the Melbourne Cabinet—"unceremoniously kicked it iut,' as Grenville says, "in the plentitudo of its fancied strength—and utte-v uneonsciouft of its danger." AH England was aghast at the news, whi'h was supported by a detailed account of the circumstances *hat had led to t)."6 "bolt from the blue." Vi- d/iy before, fore, so the story ran, Melbojr.lo had gone to Brighton, where the King then was, to arrange for the changes m the Cabinet necessary on Lord withdrawal on succeeding to his father's eaTldom; but William, anxious to have a new 6et of Ministers, had 6eizer the opportunity to dismiss the Whigs, and to call on the Duke of Wellington to form a new Government. It had been Melbourne's intention to keep this dramat'c coup secret until he had time to consult his colleagues, whom he summoned to a Council on the following day. He had, however, scarcely been back in London an hour when Brougham chanced to call on him, and to him he told the news under a solemn pledge of secrecy. Immediately after leaving Melbourne, Brougham drove straight to "The Times" office and told the whole story —adding at its conclusion, "The Queen has done it all." Probably the treacherous Lord Chancellor thought he had done a clever thing in betraying the trust 01 his chief and publishing such an important piece of news; but, if so, his gratification was 6hort-lived, for when he took up " The Times" the next morning he was. horrified to read that the downfall of the Government was largely due to the unbecoming conduct of Brougham, whoso undignified antics 'n Scotland a few weeks earlier had provoked so much scandal. THE QUEEN RETALIATES. And this was only one of several occasions on which Brougham had played Judas to his colleagues in the Ministry. A little earlier, when the question ot the Queen's jointure was discussed in the Cabinet, it was Lord Brougham who, the same evening, told her Maje->-tv that the onlv voice raised against the proposed grant of £IOO,OOO was that of Mr. Charles Grant (later Lord Glenelg)—a fact which her Majesty revealed to Lord Grey, the Premier, after she learned that it was Brougham who. through "The Times," had accused her of inciting the King to dismiss Melbourne's Ministry "The Queen has done it all." More than once a Minister's susceptibility to the allurements of beauty has been responsible for the bct;r.-il of a State secret—notably in the ease of the premature disclosure of SiT Robert Peel's intention to bring in a Will to repeal the Corn Laws seventy years ago. Only a short time previousry Peel hod declared his unwavering adherence to the Corn Laws; and the announcement ef his complete change of

front in "The Times" of December 5, 1845, was received with amazement and incredulity, aiiuough it vat. very soon found to be true. There was much speculation as to how such an important secret lean««a out; and it was not until some months later that the truth became known. After the Cabinet Council «t *men Peel had announced his change of views to his colleagues, Sidney Herbert, a young a-d handsome member of the Ministry, had gone to dine with Mrs. Norton, one of Sheridan's beautiful granddaughters; and under tn« spell of her fascinations and her seductive tongue, had weakly divulged the news to her under a pledge of secrecy. No sooner, however, had her guest lai't than Mrs. Norton drove post-haste to "The Times" office and sold her secret for £ooo.

On Saturday, March It, 1845, an article appeared in the "Times," which revealed to an astonished world the fact that an ultimatum had been sent to Russ'a. at a time when it was generally thought that negotiations with that country were proceeding to an amicable conclusion. When it was suggested that the information had been given to " The Times" by a member of the Cabinet, Lord Aberdeen hotly denied the charge and admitted that the offender wa» a clerk in th» Foreign Office, who, as a punishment, had been dismissed. Lord Aberdeen, however, was obliged to withdraw his accusation when "The Times" the following morning, denied that the informat:on had ben suplied by a clerk; and when the accused man also made a public declaration of his innocence. Thereupon Lord Malmesbury administered a severe lecture to his Lordship, concluding: "I would advise the noble Lord if anything of the kind occurs again, not rashly to lay the blame on the youngest and most insignificant member of a Department, but to remember the answer given by Sancho Panza to his master, Don Quixote, up. on an occasion when acused of an indiscretion, 'Your worship will recollect that a cask may leak at the top n*. well as at the bottom' " —a hint at the truth which was received with loud applause, for it was suspected that the hetraver was none other than Lord Aberdeen h'mself.