[To. the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I thank you for
your publication of my previous letter on this subject, but with reference to your appended editorial comment, I am afraid you have again been misled by the statements made by interested parties; viz., the journalists' unions and the National Council for Civil Liberties.
Your quotation from Hewart is correct but stops just at the point where he goes on to explain why he said that the Bill did not deal with the Press. He said : " How can it possibly be said that it is the function of a journalist to retain for some purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State an official document that he has no right to retain, or which it is contrary to his duty to retain ? "
He was, of course, not to know that 17 years afterwards a journalist in Stockport would do that very thing, and moreover refuse, contrary to the Act, to state the source of his informa- tion ; and, having been fined ks, and appealed before the Lord Chief Justice himself, have his appeal rejected in the most contemptuous terms : " In my opinion this case is really too plain for argument, and I think that the appeal should be dismissed." (Times Law Reports, Vol. 54, No. 22, 29 Apr., 1938, p. following p. 722.) No doubt when Mr. Foot's proposed amendments to the Official Secrets Acts have been passed by an indulgent House of Commons which thinks their application to its Members a breach of privilege, journalists and Members of Parliainent, and anyone else so inclined, will be free to embarrass the public service (as at Stockport) with impunity.=-Yours truly, ROBERT H. CORRICX. 31 Woodside Park Road, N. 12.
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