HAIG'S WAR CONFIDENCES

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2146, 19 April 1928, Page 2

HAIG'S WAR CONFIDENCES

Confusion caused by the publication of Earl Haig's will bearing on his secret war documents has been cleared up (says the London, Daily Chronicle). He left a diary and other writings in the custody of his wife, to be published when his trustees think fit. It has already been stated that Lord Haig some years ago deposited documents relating to the war with the British Museum trustees, with instructions that they were not to be disclosed at the earliest until 1940. Many people are now wondering whether the clause in the will lifts the ban on the 1940 time limit, and empowers his trustees to- disclose these documents to the world as Isoon as they think fit.

The.apparent ambiguity is due to the fact that Lord Haig left two distinct series of,papers. Mr Arundell J. K. Esdaile, secretary of the British Museum, explaining that it was a memorandum and not the famous diary that had been deposited there, said that in 1940 the trustees of the Museum would decide whether that document of such historic and military importance should then be published. " There is no hard and fast time limit," he said, "and it may not be considered in the general interest to publish the memorandum then. Nobody at the Museum has set eyes on the papens, which are locked in a safe." The diary, amounting to 72 closely-written pages, is, it is understood, a narrative of the war, recording the writer's views and impressions at greater length.