CABINET SECRETS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 284, 29 October 1934, Page 6

CABINET SECRETS.

The British Government’s request to former Ministers and executors of deceased Ministers to return Cabinet documents to the State draws attention to a somewhat unusual position. The subject is purely one of honour as the request cannot be enforced, and divulgence of the contents of Cabinet documents is not punishable unless, of course, a misdemeanour is committed. Cabinet earlier this year decided that it would be safer for all Cabinet papers to be placed in the custody of the secretariat instead of being kept in personal collections, and the request made this month follows on that decision. The Government has denied that this is the result of certain secrets being divulged in the spate of political memoirs with which the country has been deluged in recent years; but the fact that the decision has been made with little other point in support of it would rather indicate that the memoirs are in some measure associated with it. There was a time when no official written records of Cabinet meetings were kept. Only the results were made public, and seldom, if ever, did one hear of statesmen trespassing against the honourable obligation not to divulge the nature of the proceedings. With the War came the necessity Improper recording of the business transacted, and copies of the official minutes of Cabinet meetings were issued to members. Furthermore, Ministers in charge of portfolios made a practice of taking copies of official documents for their own collections —perhaps with an eye to the future value of them as literature —and it is on the ground that all these documents should be in the care of the State that the latest request has been made. Cabinet secrets have no special safeguard other than the oath which some Ministers have to take as Privy Councillors. A rather piquant situation may arise in the event of many refusals to give up the papers, but it is indicated that so far only one positive refusal has been received —from Mr George Lansbury, Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, who regards the documents as his personal possession.