DIFFICULT WORK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1939, Page 5

DIFFICULT WORK

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

PROBLEMS BRITISH PREMIER ASKS FOR PATIENCE. ENDEAVOURS TO BUILD UP SERVICE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. September 13. After dealing, in his statement in the House of Commons on the war situation, with the organisation of the civil defence services in Britain, Mr Chamberlain said he proposed to say a few words about the work of the Ministry of Information, on which the Lord Privy Seal would make a detailed statement in due course.

“The work of the Ministry of Information,” the Prime Minister proceeded. "is the most difficult type of work that can be assigned to a Government Department. Such a Ministry must continually seek to steer between giving information which might help the enemy to defeat and destroy our own troops and withholding information with the risk of creating the impression that terrible things may be happening of which the public has no knowledge. “In the 7 second place, the Ministry of Information is necessarily a department which cannot begin its real work in any real sense till the outbreak of war, and then, at a moment’s notice, it has to spring into the fullest activity. It can scarcely be expected that, in the face of such formidable difficulties as these, errors will not be made, and some of them will be serious enough to cause trouble and exasperation to the whole Press.

"I regret such incidents, and I should like now to express my appreciation of the patriotic way in which the Press' generally in this country has co-op-erated with the Government and sought to play its part in the common struggle. I have already declared to the House the desire and intention of the Government to give the fullest possible information to the public and to do all that we can to prevent any feeling in the minds of the public that they are being kept in the dark. That is the principle to which, through the Ministry of Information, we shall seek to give effect. “Improvements in the machinery can, I have no doubt, be made, and the debate may help us to discover what some of these improvements should be. But I feel that in these early days I am entitled to ask the House arid the country for patience and toleration while we are endeavouring to correct what has gone wrong and to build up a satisfactory and efficient service.”