“Crockford’s” Criticises Royal Family Publicity

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27990, 9 June 1956, Page 12

“Crockford’s” Criticises Royal Family Publicity

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, June 8

The Royal Family might have been better advised and served on the question of publicity, according to the anonymous author of the preface to the latest edition of “Crockford's Clerical Directory.”

Ey custom the author of this preface is a person of distinction and remains anonymous in order to express his views on Church matters with complete frankness.

In a section headed “Royal Family and the Press,” the preface says that the matter of Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend had given rise to “widespread concern about the publicity which in recent years has attached to even the most private actions of the Royal Family.

“Many thoughtful people are wondering whether the amount .of publicity which at present attaches to the private lives of members of the Royal Family is not liable to have its repercussions when the point of satiation has been reached.

“We believe that the Royal Family might have been better advised and served in this respect. Greater privacy would be to the benefit of themselves personally, of the monarchy, and of the country at large.”

The article added: “But this did not excuse the treatment by the newspapers of the incident. The paper which was the leading offender, worked up the subject long in advance, and ensured that neither party should be allowed any privacy. “The stunt was. however, taken up by other papers and we regret to say that even the editor of one of the Church papers expressed his personal views at this stage in the popular newspapers. “There is a time and place for everything, and the intervention of the editor of this newspaper in the secular press on this occasion created an unfortunate impression. By contrast the utterances of the editor of another Church paper, whose policy we do not normally admire, were singularly fitting.’’ “Invasion of Privacy” In another section headed “Modern Journalism,” the preface says: “The treatment of Princess Margaret’s private affairs by a considerable section of the newspapers was, to many people, but one more example of the increasing invasion of privacy by journalists who respect neither sorrow nor domestic peace in their desire to get a story. “The press is both a symptom and encouragement of the decline in abso-

lute values so manifest in the life of the country today. The responsibility for this lies very largely with the schools and universities, in which so few of those who teach accept these values themselves, or if they do, have the confidence to impart them. In the long run the universities do mould the thought and standards of the nation.

“There is not so great a gulf as might be supposed between the ‘Daily Mirror’ and the present deplorable condition of English metaphysics and moral philosophy.” Referring again to the question of Princess Margaret and Group Captain Townsend the preface says that the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. G. F. Fisher) “reaped the full reward” of hs public statements on marriage and divorce.

"We suggest that some of the Archbishop’s statements failed to represent the opinions of a substantial minority of members of the Church of England, and we gave some reasons for doubting the rightness of translating them into law in the proposed new canons of the Church of England. “All this, perhaps, makes it necessary to say that Princess Margaret’s decision was received with fespect and admiration by those both of the Church of England aqd the Free Churches, who do not altogether share the Archbishop’s views. “It needs to be emphasised that those who do not take the rigid view are, nevertheless, deeply concerned to uphold the Christian ideal of marriage.”