slug. 18, Last week we were told that the Norwegian Parliament had complained of the belated and unreliable news, coloured—with British official opinions, with which Norway was being deluged. Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, Under retary to the Foreign Office, admitted the propaganda, which he said, was concocted by three men in the Foreign Office and sent out by Admiralty wireless.
would continue, he added, so jong as the House of Commons sanctioned the expense. At the time of receiving this message we valsed a strong objection to thix propaganda, partly because it is un-British,, partly because it is now, generally, so overdone that it begins to produce something worse than no effect. Further we inay say that in this office we have seen something of the For-
during the past three er four years eign Office idea of Propagand: and frankly. to the, professional journalist, anything less likely to catch the public taste cent: hardly be imagined.
Indirectly in connexion with one of the letters we publish today, we have reverted te this question because it is, symptomatic of a state of mind that needs guarding against very carefully, Everybody knows where and when the British Government got the idea of propaganda, It was from Germany during the war, and we do not deny that Germany, which by credible information had spent years in studying the art, did it very well. The British Government nevoy did it well and judging by the complaints from Norway they are not improving. Nor is there much reason to expect that they will improve because, like many other things imitated from Germany, propaganda is alien to the British national genius.
It is against any renewal of this imitation of things German that we venture to say that a very determined stand should be made. the years before the war it amounted to a perfect craze. German philosophy, medicine. science, education, machinery and every-day -household things like scissors and cutlery were extolled to an extent that we blush to remember. At the beginning of the war the "'pro-Gerinanisn oes some of our leading politicians was notorious. And this is not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.