NEWS OF ENGLAND ABROAD

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22317, 3 February 1938, Page 5

NEWS OF ENGLAND ABROAD

■ ♦ CONCERN AT FALSE IMPRESSIONS PROBLEM CONSIDERED BY GOVERNMENT (TROir otr» own correspoitdbkt.) LONDON, January 6. Means to ensure that the rest of the world receives a fair picture of British life, aims and policy are now under consideration by the Government. This was one of the questions discussed by the Cabinet before the Christmas holidays. For long past a Cabinet committee, presided over by Sir Kingsley Wood, Minister for Health, has had aspects of this problem under review. A first result was the establishment of the British Council for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Next followed the decision to authorise broadcasts in foreign languages, the first of which was inaugurated recently. Ministers, however, have been convinced by the growth abroad of .controlled and subsidised newspapers and news agencies that other steps are needed if large sections of the world’s population are not to be given false impressions about the British Empire and its peoples. It has been realised, on the one hand, that this is a most undesirable and, indeed, dangerous state of affairs. On the other hand, it is recognised that British steps to correct the position ought not to be modelled on the propaganda machinery created by authoritarian States. Delicate and Complex Many of the questions raised are delicate and complex, since they involve the relations between the Government and the British press and news agencies. The Cabinet committee will examine the problem in greater detail in the near future. It cannot be expected, however, that it will be in a position to make recommendations to the Cabinet for a considerable time. The importance of the matter has only lately been fully appreciated by the Government as a whole. Once tackled, it will raise questions not only of principle but of finance. At present Government expenditure in helping to disseminate British ideas pared with that lavished on propaganda by only one of many foreign countries.