Churchill's Men Get Touchy

Political blood was spilt last week in Britain over the question of censorship, and the popularity of Winston Churchill's Government was the sufferer.

In the House, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison accused London's rambunctious Mirror of publishing "scurrilous misrepresentations, distorted and exaggerated statements and irresponsible generalizations . . . tending to undermine the Army and depress the whole population. . . ." Hitherto Britain's censorship has been confined to the suppression of information that might be of value to the enemy. But there is a section of the Defense Regulations (passed in the summer of 1940, when Britain was in imminent danger of invasion) permitting the Government to suppress a paper that undermines the war effort. The Home Secretary talked of suppressing the Mirror.

The Mirror, founded by the late Lord Northcliffe and the world's first great successful tabloid, is no small game. It has over 2,000,000 circulation and is the most popular paper with British servicemen. It is neither pacifist nor defeatist, but it has unmercifully ribbed the blunders of the British war effort. Its Columnist Cassandra,* a bespectacled, vitriolic Irish hefty named William Connor, has furnished most of the ammunition.

The occasion of Morrison's wrath was an innocuous-looking cartoon whose bite was in its caption, "The price of petrol has been increased by one penny" (implying that British seamen were risking their lives to fatten the big corporations). As supporting evidence for his charge, Morrison quoted a paragraph from a Mirror editorial: "The accepted tip for Army leadership would, in plain words, be this: All who aspire to mislead the other in war should be brass-buttoned boneheads, socially prejudiced, arrogant and fussy. A tendency to heart disease, apoplexy, diabetes and high blood pressure is desirable in the highest spots."

Some comment in the House supported the Home Minister. One Member even asked whether the Mirror was partly owned by William Randolph Hearst. (Since Lord Rothermere, brother of Lord Northcliffe, gave up control in 1931, the Mirror's ownership has not been a matter of public record, but tall, energetic Cecil Harmsworth King, nephew of Lord Northcliffe, is generally supposed to control it. Hearst is a bad bet.)

"What is the Government so worried about?" was the typical public reaction. The Telegraph (which for some months has succeeded the Times as Tory spokesman) said that the Mirror's cartoon and Cassandra's jobs "come under the head of irresponsible wrecking of morale." But the rest of the British press, from the Conservative Times to the Laborite Herald, sided with the Mirror against Morrison.

The News Chronicle quoted words spoken by Winston Churchill before he became Prime Minister: "Criticism in the body politic is like pain in the human body. It is not pleasant but where would the body be without it? . . ."

It looked very much as if Winston Churchill's Government was getting over-touchy about criticism--as well it might, with more & more British politicians predicting its fall; caught between the Left, demanding active offensive warfare, and the Right, calling for at least another year of defensive, till strength is built up. And by getting touchy, the Government risked losing more of its popularity.

* Not to be confused with French Commentator Genevieve Tabouis, who likes to be called by the same name.

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