t he is being made a fool of.) This Press campaign did
grave mischief. Dwellers in the East End, who were suffering seriously
from the raids and were almost in a condition of panic, were induced
to believe that pro-German influence in high places was at the bottom
of our failure to resort to retaliatory counter-measures.

When the Prime Minister placed a newspaper proprietor in charge of
the Air Service, he made in some respects a clever move. Press
criticism practically ceased, and what there was of it mainly took the
form of demands for a separate Ministry of Air. It would have been far
better, however, if no decision had been arrived at on this subject
until after the war was over, when the question could have been gone
into carefully, and when a newspaper man would not have been actually
in charge.

It may be remarked in conclusion that, had procedure within the War
Office subsequent to mobilization more nearly followed the lines
contemplated before the war, and which were only resumed some months
later, there would probably have been less friction with the Press.
The question of the war correspondents which has been mentioned above
is a case in point. Then, again, a branch like mine which possessed an
adequate staff, had it been given a freer hand, had it been allowed
the requisite responsibility, and had it been kept better informed of
what was actually going on in respect to operations, could have
furnished newspapers with useful hints on many subjects. Take, for
instance, that incessant outcry during the first two years or so of
the war over the services of individual corps in action not being made
known. As far as I am aware, journalists were never informed that the
chief grounds for reticence in this matter arose from a simple sense
of fairness. Everybody who has had to deal with history of military
operations knows how hard it is to discover the actual facts in
connection with any tactical event, and what careful weighing of
different reports is necessary before the truth can be established. In
these days of electric communications, official reports are sent off
at very short notice and before details can possibly be known. If some
unit is especially singled out for praise, injustice is likely to have
been done; some other unit, or units, may in reality have done better
without the full story having come to hand when the report was
despatched.

In matters of this kind, the Press might advantageously have r