OFFICIAL SILENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 22, 26 July 1945, Page 7

OFFICIAL SILENCE

TOPICS IN BRITAIN

CALL FOR MORE FACTS

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) Rec. 10.15 a.m. LONDON, July 25,

"At no time has the State possessed so detailed a knowledge of the everyday life and affairs of the nation; at no time has it been less disposed to share its knowledge with the sovereign people," says "The Times" in a significant leading article on the eve of the announcement of the election results. It declares that no single duty imposed on the new Government is more urgent and more important than the collection and dissemination of facts upon which public policy must be based.

"The present undoubted restiveness among many sections of the community has, it is evident,, inescapable causes," states the article. "The war in Europe is over, yet the dearth of civilian necessities and the severance of families which accompanied the war remain in peace. There is a legacy of fatigue, and often, with the urgency of fighting done, of grievance. But the sense of frustration which inevitably followed as a reaction to five years of unprecedented national and individual effort is certainly multiplied by the continued disinclination of the authorities to publish all available information about issues which naturally are troubling the public mind. "The immediate consequences of this reluctant attitude can be quickly rectified. For the Government to take the nation fully into their confidence, for instance, about the present manpower position, would do untold good. But there are more longer-term and more lasting implications. The policy in future must rest more than ever upon the widest and freest inteixhange of information between the Government and the community, whose interests they exist to serve, and it is imperative that the wartime habit of official reticence should be promptly and completely abandoned.'' The article adds that since 1939 publicity and secrecy have' been used as instruments of governance on a scale unsurpassed in previous British historyNever before has the nation been told iso persistently and so extensively and in so many ways what the authorities wish it to do and believe. Never before has there been such an outpouring of official publicity associated with so thorough a parching up of sources of factual information. "There are still military reasons for official silence on many topics," "The Times" says, "but for the greater part iof the missing information this excuse is fast losing all its validity. The black-out must be lifted and the windows opened."