THE CENSORSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 9

THE CENSORSHIP

WORK OR IDLING?

ANOTHER DEBATE IN LORDS

BUREAU DEFENDED

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, December 15.

In the House of Lords the Ministry of Information has again been under the harrow. The main centre of attack this time was the Censorship Bureau, where Lord' Raglan had been engagedand from which he resigned because he could not find enough work to occupy his time or justify his salary.

In Lord Raglan's experience the bureau was much overstaffed and overpaid. There were a large number of deputy chief censors; Over them were [various high officials with whose names, titles, and ranks he never became acquainted. There were at least 20 persons in the censorship department drawing a salary of £470 and over. Not only was the department overpaid, but the staff in itself much too large. The night shift, except for one or two persons, did nothing at all. They arrived about midnight and went to, the camp beds provided in the bureau. j where they stayec. until the next morning. ' ■ ■ ' '•

In 'his department were two assistant censors who were recently"* promoted to censor, though how it was done he had never found, out. Their work was really, only that of an assistant clerk. After a few weeks, four lady examiners were appointed. He was riot told wh .t they were supposed to,do, and, in fact, they did nothing but a few odd jolps which the censors could have done themselves. He had seen them sitting there from 9!30 a.m, to 4 p.m. without doing anything at all. He mentioned that on several occasions to1 the senior officer in the department, but^ the only answer he got was the appointment of a fifth lady. (Laughter.) - ."■■ •■ '■ ' ■■■■ ■■■ ' • :

PHOTOGRAPHIC ABSURDITIES. ■~~ The : photographic and book department had a-'Staff, of 19. Lord Raglan could have run it very comfortably with eight. It would' -pot have ,mattered so much if, when t^e staff were at work, they were engaged on work of national importance. Their lordships might suppose that in.the photoghaphic department ;< they were stopping photographs, which might be useful to the enemy from being published. The . sort of thing they l were really doing was to stamp "not to be published" on pictures of Lady Astor playing : with children. (Laughter.) On the outbreak of w;ar an order was given by somebody—nobody knew who —that the name of any place to which children had been evacuated should not be .mentioned, andjthe censors spent, many .hours each day striking out with blue pencil: the names of Brighton,' Bognor, and Bexhill. But when they got' a photograph of Cliveden it was no good striking out the name of the place,,because -Lady Astor appeared on it, so they had to stop the photograph altogether. (Laughter.) This order wa repeated several times, until eventually, when the Queen visited a settlement in Sussex for evacuated children, in spite of the ban, it was given wide publicity, and the next day the ban was removed. He could give examples'-of" an even absurder kind: While the censors were hard at work stopping photographs from being published in London they were being published in all the provincial newspapers. If a photograph was stopped in a particular newspaper it never appeared there, but it was the commonnest thing for such a ; l photograph to appear in a dozen other newspapers. MONEY BEING SQUANDERED. The Earl of Middleton spoke of very deep- indignation • among all classes at the way in which money was being, squandered in Ministries. "Unless I have a pledge from Earl Stanhope," he said, "that this question will be taken up and dealt with. I am afraid I shall have to make one or two disclosures which would have the most unhappy effect in some quarters—in most important quarters—of this want of economy."

The Marquess of Dufferinand Ava, Under-Secretary for the ; Colonies, said that when the photographs and bppks department was separated, Lord Raglan was transferred to the book department. He might have looked round to see what was ; lacking. Instead he .chose to resign on a day's notice, and did not even exercise the ordinary month's notice which normal courtesy would require, with the result that his successor had to work 12 hours a day for several days clearing up. ,

Lord Raglan: I must protest. I did not leave one single, thing to clear up. I had half ah/hour's work the last day and left an absolutely clear sheet.

Lord Dufferin: My noble friend's conception of a clear sheet and mine are different. I understand that there were a-dozen books to be censored that day. Lord Raglan's successor found] a very profitable outlet for his spare j time by going round to libraries checking up on books and making sure that they did not exceed the proper limits of censorship; Lord Raglan's resignation was . ill advised and ill timed, for his job was of the very greatest importance. The work ought to be well paid. The censorship department was working at a greater pressure than its present staff could support, and the particular ques-J tion did not justify an attack on that hard-working branch of the Ministry. MIKE A WIZARD'S PARLOUR; Lord Macmillan (Minister of Information) said the Censorship Department had recently come under a careful scrutiny, and it had been recommended that it was essential that there should be an addition to the staff if the work was to be adequately carried out. He regretted that Lord Raglan was dissatisfied with his experience. His successor had found ample occupation, and was in no sense an idler in the Censorship Department. "I can assui-e the House," he added, "that the Ministry is certainly not a home of idlers, and the unfortunate experience of Lord Raglan in its early days is in no sense a sample of what happens in the Ministry." The Censorship Department was an exceedingly busy place—almost like a wizard's parlour—arid the rest of the Ministry was now in very fair working order. The Ministry had received a most remarkable bouquet from a very unexpected quarter—Germany. The "Manchester Guardian" the other ;day published an article from a German newspaper "in which the writer said that he found nothing but British propaganda throughout Holland.