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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19505, 13 June 1925, Page 11

MINISTERS AS JOURNALISTS. An interesting, though not quite novel, topic claimed notice in the House of Commons the other day, when the Prime Minister was pointedly asked whether he would direct the attention of bis colleague, the Secretary of State for India, to the principle affirmed by more than one previous Cabinet that Ministers of the Crown should not contribute signed articles to the press on matters of public policy. Mr Baldwin stated that the present Cabinet had discussed and endorsed the rule, and it is curious to reflect that Lord Birkenhead was presumably in attendance when the decision was recorded. Equally curious is the Prime Minister’s intimation that he had not noticed his colleague’s recent articles as “he seldom saw the evening papers.” Asked whether in this particular instance ho would repair the omission, he nonchalantly replied that he “had a good many things to read.” Lord Birkenhead may have taken the view that the treatment of subjects such as capital punishment, not strictly political in the ordinary sense, hardly came within the scope of the accepted rule. The Times, while generally agreeing with the prohibitive principle, deprecates the establishment of a rigid veto against the expression by Ministers of their opinions in , the press. Here in New Zealand we have had illustrations of the plea that in the public interest it may sometimes be desirable that an authoritative statement of policy should he published when there is no occasion for making a speech. But these authoritative statements are not exclusively furnished to any one * paper, and in any event a publication of this kind is, as The Times points out, quite different from the publication of articles by Ministers as paid contributors to the press. “There are obvious objections to this practice, for once the principle of Ministerial journalism is admitted there would be no limit to its extension, to the real detriment of public service.” It is evidently taken for granted that Lord Birkenhead' c newspaper contributions have not been of an honorary nature, and The Times bluntlv suggests that the kind of enterprise in which he is engaged would lose its attractiveness and speedily come to an end 'f the element of remuneration were eliminated.