There used to be a stock joke in Fleet Street expressed in the phrase: "It must be true; I saw it in the papers." What we are now coming to is, ''It must be untrue; saw it in the Government wireless news," Norway is-not generally associated with world revolutions, but if her objection to the wireless messages sent out from London helps to put an end to this pernicious practice, which is now common in all countries, she will have deserved well of the world. We are not condemning the British wireless service, which in fact we have never seen, more than any other. We simply say that men in Government departments are the very last who ought to be entrusted with the distribution of news: their whole training vitiates their power of selection and insensibly colours their presentation of things. But the remedy gested by Mr. Robert Donald is no real remedy. In fact there is only one remedy, namely to stop the thing altogether. Mr. Donald thinks that because other countries are largely using wireless for propaganda purposes, we should do the same. contrary, for this very. reason we should do nothing of the sort. The British Government is often blamed for trying to do nothing to counteract. Sinn Fein propaganda in America. But in the general balance of things, we shall lose more by trying to trumpet our own claims and merits by propaganda. The thing has already very nearly been done to death and people have become so suspicious that they now see "a nigger in every wood pile." The less the British Government has to do with the distribution of news, the better all round.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.