SALE PROHIBITED

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9210, 2 December 1915, Page 7

SALE PROHIBITED

NAVAL PUBLICATIONS BANNED NEW REGULATION ISSUED BY DEFENCE AUTHORITIES; The sale within New Zealand of certain publications dealing With the world’s navies is prohibited by a regulation gazetted yesterday under the War Regulations Act, 1914. Tho Minister for Defence has power under that Act to. prohibit tho sale of any books or other publications “which.he deems injurious to the public interest in respect of tho present war.” The volumes which have been placed under the ban are, “Fleets of the. World” (■published by Evielyu Nash'), “The Naval Pocket-Book” (published by Thacker and Company), and “Fighting Ships,” “The World’s Warships,” “Warships at a Glance,” and “Tho Naval Recognition Book,” four volumes, edited by Mr F. T. Jane and published by Sampson, Low, Marston and. Company. All tho books are published in London. During the last week or two some volumes that come under the new regulation have been sold locally, and tho Defence authorities have been taking steps to trace them, apparently with th© object Of removing from them certain pages containing information regarding some of the fighting ships engaged in the present war. The regulation is understood to have originated with the Imperial Government, but the curious thing about it is that the volumes were published in London with the consent of the Admiralty. They contain none of the detailed information regarding British ships that 'used to be issued broadcast by all the naval publications prior to the outbreak of the war, and it is difficult for a layman to see what harm their general circulation could do. Not one of the volumes mentioned in the schedule to the regulation contains any information that is not already on record in every Admiralty office in the world —to say nothing of most of the newspaper Offices and the libraries of private people who happen to take an interest in naval matters. i An edition of “The Naval RocketBook,” published only a month or two before the outbreak of the war contains, for example, details of the five British battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class, all laid down in 191218, and all now in commission, according to a cablegram published the other 'day. It describes also a later group of battleships, the five Royal Sovereigns, laid down in 1918-14, and mentions .tho 1914-15 Ships, , That volume was distributed all over the world, abd cannot have failed to reach the hands of the Empire’s present enemies, who probably did not need the information it contained. But New Zealanders, at any rate, 'are hot to hate these particulars.