The Wanganui Chronicle AND RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1901. MORE ABOUT THE CENSOR

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 August 1901, Page 2

The Wanganui Chronicle AND RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1901. MORE ABOUT THE CENSOR

In a recent issue we referred to the crusade against the censorship which was being waged by leading Home journals, with Mr Edgar .Wallace and the London Daily Mail in the forefront That the subject is one of more. than passing interest goes without saying. We are all, whether we recognise it or not, deeply interested in the war. It has already cost our Empire some 17,000 precious lives; and over £120,----000,000, and its -. continuance is entailing an outlay estimated .at the rate of a million and a quarter a week. We in the colonies have got to Jbear a. share of this burden. Directly or indirectly we must feel its weight. Therefore we have a right to know how, and in what manner the expensive business is being conducted. It is in support of this right that Mr Edgar Wallace is just now so' vigorously fighting. .Mr, Wallace:..has-proved himself to be not only a brilliant war correspondent, but a plucky fighter. He is no sniper, firing venemously-worded strictures under the. cover of a norn deplume, but a literary soldier, who comes right out in the opei-. and challenges the enemy face to face. He does .not rail at the censors, since he consider* that iriost of the men who have been appointed to the more important centres "are educated, courteous gentlemen, who do not mutilate news out of 1 very wantonness, but rather; act .cither in conformity with an inscrutable law, evidently based on Ihe spasmodic whimsies of some exalted military genius, whose claim to distinction is apparently a total ignorance of public feeling and,a. lack of acquaintance with the first principles of Logical Deduction, or else; at the dictation of Downing-street wire-pullers, who have •a political object in suppressing facts." He adds," howeyer, that "there are—or. rather have been—censors who were neither educated,. courteous, nor gentlemanly ; censors of a clay, .to to speak, who have .-played the v fool with the. English public as their caprices or their malice dictated.": Mr> Wallace" alleges that these men, armed with'a little brief authority, and accepting Lord Wolseley't hasty definition of the war correspondent ("the curse of modern armies") —as an axiom:, taid. Lord Kitchener's alleged aversion to "the Press as a sound backing, have bullied and threatened and hacked and slashed, just as their spite or stupidity inspired them." Among the instance*, ha' quotes in justification of his unmeasured condemnation of the system, and its instruments is one of particular interest •to .colonials.. ;"A. couple of months ago,': says Mr Wallace, writing on the 12th oi June, "when I was with Henniker on tht trailSf 'the wily De Wet, there was acensor .attached to General Lyttelton'a Staff who carefully eliminated from a wire which a-escribed'4 the taking of De Wet's guns every reference to the Yeomen, the Australians and the irregular corps, and inserted in their stead a statement which, not to put too fine appoint on it, was an absolute falsehood. What his object was in doing this, Heaven only knows. But to -me, taMng-'as- ordinary matter-of-fact view of the case, it seemed very much like an exhibition of jealousy, and an attempt to boycott corps which, in the piping times of peace,,do not -figure in the Army List:*'-■ ilr%aliacc did not ; allow this incident 'to.'pass without protest. He wrote to Lord Kitchener, enclosing the report published as censored, with the1 censor's additions, and the message he himself had written out; "from which it was abundantly clear that not. only had all reference tr. the Yeomen and Victorians been excised, but to an Imperial officer had' been given the credit of" charging the guns, a feat properly given by Mr Wallace to the Victorians.. ?n the course of his letter, Mr Wallace said, '.'it was the Victorian Bush-' nien Contingent's first fight, and I considered it essential in Imperial interests that their performance should be made as widely known as possible,, for at this time, your Lordship will remember, the attention of the English people was directed toward: the recruiting of new Yeomanry and Australian contingents." So far Lord Kitchener's reply.'to the correspondent does not appear to have been made public, bui it ia -evident that if Mr Wallace's presentation of the case is an, accurate one, the censored censor will find it difficult to justify .the unnecessary and unfair mutilation of the message. Mr Wallace writes in this connection not of Kitchener the General, but of Kitchener the Administrator, and he asserts that the policy of Kitchener the Administrator is the reflected1 policy of His Majesty's Government. "Read between the lines of a censored message," he says, "and you see Downing Street. A blue line drawn across a dozen words—and a,., question in the House avoided. A sentence erased —and a. responsibility shirked. It seems -to me 'that the censorship which was, originally instituted for purely military purposes is being used for political ends, and that some restrictions are placed on messages for this and for no other reason." In short, in Mr Wallace's opinion, "the man wlio was strong enough to desecrate the tomb of the Mahdi • and strike a deadly blow at superstition and heathendom, to the horror and puny! wrath of tea.-meetingdom, is strong enough to shoot off traitors and devastate, a country without fear of criticism or out-6f-office hysteria. Strong enough-is "X.,"' but weak, terribly weak, is the knee-shaky Cabinet whose very philosophy—so much in evidence at the outbreak of war—is deserting them. There ia nothing to be gained by keeping* dark such things as I have enumerated. There is •everything to gain by a policy of frankness." Are we afraid to say, significantly asks the correspondent, that we-are making war in a warlike way? Is, it worthy of cur national traditions that we should burn and destroy the enemy's property which has been used against <>ur arms, and; ravage the land that- supports him, and be: afraid to tell the world that we are doing it? ■Tho war was a just war: an inevitable war. We were not ashamed'to "wage it: why fear to let .even a rtabby Opposition know the method of' waging ? And , about tlie shooting of the wounded und I

the many stories of Boer atrocities which may not be sent by cable. Why .this soli citude? Instances have occurred times without number,-but times-'without- lmm-

ber the greatest objection has been made to the recording of these. Conciliating and whitewashing seem to be so much the order of the day now that one hesitates at ispeftking adversely of Brother Boer, lest an indignant Crown should institute an action for criminal libel!