IMPORTANCE OF SECRECY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 59, 9 March 1916, Page 3

IMPORTANCE OF SECRECY.

All these fights with the censor do not mean that tire French editors are not loyal and patriotic, or that they want to give out military information that would help the Germans. They had enough of that in 1870, when a small three-line paragraph in a Paris daily led to the defeat of Sedan. ('. stated that General MacMahon had left Paris to join Bazaine, and the Germans were not slow in applying the old maxim, “Divide and conquer.”) All the Paris editors want to make the army as strong as possible; they want to be free to criticise the Government; they want a Press free to point out faults, and to check up what is being done by the politicians. Without this, they say,, the army cannot be kept at its best. The French press accept military censorship and also their political censorhip, but still more personal censorship, but hich these in power can prevent information unfavourable to themselves from reaching the public. A free Press is a kind of a safety valve, and any i government that sits on it too long may be blown up.