THE FUTURE OF THE WAR CORRESPONDENT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1511, 14 February 1901, Page 46

THE FUTURE OF THE WAR CORRESPONDENT

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Discussing the future of the War Office in the November number of the “’National Review,” Mr H. F. Prevost .Bat-ter-shy makes the following, suggestion for the benefit of the. War Office: Only representatives of the big dailies, the illustrated weeklies, and certain recognised agencies, should be allowed at the front, and only men of proved ability or of indubitable qualifications should be permitted to correspond. By this latter restriction the Censor’s office would be made easier and njpre pleasant. At present he has to deal with men of every social and unsocial experience, who may be as complete strangers to the habits of discipline as they are to those of good manners. There are men under his control who have a. preference efor the veiws of the private soldier in matters of strategy, who are in sympathetic communication with the sergeants’ mess, .whose conception of their duty includes the bribing of signallers and telegraph clerks, and who have a natural craving rather for news than for honour. Yet he has to frame rules which shall restrain such men within limits or propriety, and yet not gall those whose conceptions of what is decent- are altogether different. And then Mr Prevost Battersby goes on to make a proposal which is certainly original land somewhat /startling. Hje suggests a severance of the war correspondent from the telegraph wire. The use of the cable has an evil influence of more than one kind. It is a continued temptation to that ftpidue previousness which often differs little from the common lie. It leads to that- bribery already mentioned, and corruption of subordinates which puts honest men at a considerable disadvantage. It ties a. correspondent daily to one spot from which news can be sent, and thus often causes him to miss the most interesting part of the clay’s fighting. It clogs the wire on _ most occasions with an absolutely ridiculous repetition of the day’s doings. Lastly, it leads to what may prove a very dangerous competition, and to the multiplication of that uncertain class of servant, .the dispatch rider. By the setting free of the correspondent" from the daily importunity of the telegraph, by the chances thus afforded him of viewing the most significant moments of the day’s work, by the concentration of his powers on a sober and thoughtful review of the operations, unaffected by opinions hastily expressed for the telegraph on the day of the issue, by the absence of uselessly repeated reports of the day’s fighting—by all these things the public would be the gainer. But it is not proposed that the public should be without telegraphic news of a war; indeed, it is in order that it should obtain such news in a very muds more extended shape than it does at present that this scheme has been in part suggested. If the possible thousand words -which may represent the field wire’s capacity, instead 'of being frittered away in lengths of forty or fifty words, the public might, have daily a. full and

complete account of every day’s proceedings. The question, at once arises, Who is to write? Clearly, the writer must hare access to the official mind, but must, at the same time, not he unduly influenced by it.. His duty will be reproduce a record of events compiled' from all sources, without comment. Consequently his office must have official recognition. He must be as the Press Censor is at present, part of the staff, but he need not necessarily be upon the active list, nor, for that matter, even be a soldier. A man with military knowledge, literary powers, and the habit of discipline is required; but the fewer professional relations he has with those whose doings he describes obviously the better. He alone must be held responsible for what he writes, and there is no reason he should not be as competent to decide what should or should not be given publicity as a Press Censor. His daily despatch would be disributed as the War Office thought fit to every newspaper that cared, to pay its share towards the cost of the message. The expense to. the newspaper would only be from a tenth to a twentieth of what they now have to pay for ivires, often so brief as to be of no value It may be argued that a paper would not care for a plan that reduced it in one particular to a leA r el with its rivals, and that objection would, doubtless, have had considerable force before the war in South Africa, began. The press has since then had a taste of what 4s a Avord a day means for ten months, and the taste is probably somewhat bitter in its} mouth. At it is, the daily papers have been for some time practically reduced to a common level by the publication of Lord. Roberts’s despatches so much fuller and earlier than those of their own correspondents. And really, all that was possible of spelendid and exciting adventure with the telegraph is n.ow at an end. The Censor has put his closure upon that. Not one© nor tiviee during this last, war did one ride into headquarters after a fight, at the risk of killing one’s horse, to find that one’s news was all too neAV, and to see it laid aside for 24 or more hours till full official intelligence had. been received and dispatefted, and, incidentally, till every other correspondent had handed in a message. No, the old days which were the correspondents’ glory are past and done with, and will never come again. The starving endurance, the desperate rides of the men with the news are never likely to be repeated in the interest of a paper; save by the dispatch rider, and his arrival is generally forestalled by the repair of the held wire, without Avhieh, in the future, no army ayHI advance.