THE SILLY CENSORSHIP.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 311, 11 October 1915, Page 8

THE SILLY CENSORSHIP.

Writes Sidney Coryn in the San Francisco Argonaut:—The utter and hopeless stupidity of the British censorship of news was never better illustrated than by a report from Sir .John French that has recently been published. This report shows that the guns tiiat were recaptured by the Canadians during the recent heavy fighting an the Britsh front wore taken again five minutes later, and also fifty Freuah guns. The original bulletins, carefully edited presumably by some half-pay colonel, related the gallant feat of the Canadians, but made no mention of the fact that it was actually in vain, although the truth was well-known. An editorial comment in the London Sunday Chronicle remarks: "We have done our best to comply, in spirit and in letter, with the demands of tneensorship, but a strong protest must be made against such 'eye-washing ’ of the public as this. Since the Germans know all about it, there could be no excuse for keeping it from the enemy, and nothing on earth could be so discouraging to the average Briton as to find that something which he had belived on the strength of a British official report had turned out to be utterly misleading. People will begin to say. and rightly, that, the German official reports are more to be trusted than our own. Is it to this that the censorship has led ns at last?’*