Amending the Official Secrets Act.
Sir Samuel Hoare must be held to have done everything that could reasonably be asked of him in regard to the amendment of the Official Secrets Act. The measure, as recent discussions of it in Parliament and the Press have made amply clear, was framed to deal with cases of espionage and nothing else, and so far as it has been used against journalists who published perfectly harmless informa- tion based on unissued official documents, or been invoked in such cases as those of Mr. Duncan Sandys, its original purpose has been grossly and improperly perverted. The amending Bill, introduced in the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor on Tuesday, appears to remove all such danger for the future. Its effective clause lays it down that action by the police is to be taken under Section I of the existing Act, which deals with persons believed to be acting kith " a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the ,tate." That is a drastic limitation; even so the police before crcising the powers the Act confers must obtain the permis- .on of the Secretary of State. The only possible criticism that when a chief officer of police is satisfied " that the case is one of great emergency and that in the interest of he State immediate action is necessary " he may act first and get permission afterwards—but to deny the police that power would be going definitely too far in the other direction.
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