GUARDING DIPLOMATIC SECRETS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 240, 3 October 1908, Page 3

GUARDING DIPLOMATIC SECRETS.

Although the new Ollicial Secrets bill will penalise persons wSi'o ill future wilfully sell or give away diplomatic secrets to third parties, it can hardly lead to any improvement in the elaborate precautions that, arc even now Oaken to prevent accidental leakage. These precautions date from 1878, ill w'lik-li year a draft copy of a secret agreement bet-ween Great Britain and ltiissia was published iu its entirety, wwd for word, by a London evening liewspitpei'. The precious document had, it afterwards transpired, been Miinev.'d by a. copying clerk temporarily employed at flic foreign Ollicc, who afterwards sold it for it igood round sum lo the editor of the journal in question. Since then, all impM'tant State documents of a .secret n'auu'e have .been wj-itltcii in a cipher, the key to which, besides being frequently changed, is not in the possession of anybody s'avo Hie Cabinet Ministers' and certain high permanent ollicials.

Similar 'precautions arc in force at t'abiiui meetings, ilJic minutes for prewntution to -the King l>eing carefully coded .before bring despatched by .special messenger to Windsor, or wherever his .\l'aji may be staying at the time. It i* a rule, jtuo.'thait no blotting-paper is to be used by Ministers on these occasions, nor may any f*ni\>s of .piapei' \u?;ih writing upon (item be left lying 1 about. iSkule iliK-iiini'iiii eavrieil abroad are carried by King's.messengers in a locked lMjr. To this lock there are two keys only, one being in the custody of the Foreign tliliee.r while the Ambassador to whom. Hie papers are consigned has possession of Ihe oilier.