March. 17th, 1941
REPORT TO MR. NORMAN E. CRUMP FROM THE ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE OFFICER

It would appear from recent experience that there is a certain lack of co-ordination evident between the various sections of government departments and their press offices.

This situation, which savours occasionally either of obstructionism or laziness, is exercising an unfortunate effect on governmental relations with the public as a whole and cannot fail - if it be allowed to persist - still further to aggravate the already highly unsatisfactory relations between certain government departments and the interests to whom they minister.

The most notable offender in this respect is the Ministry of Supply. I have long been in touch with their press office in London and found them placed in the invidious position of not knowing what their own controls are doing and not being able to extract any information from them when important steps are taken. I do not complain of the attitude of the Ministry of Supply press office to Reuters, which has always been very helpful. I simply state a fact of which the press office is itself only too well aware, namely, that they are themselves not able to let us have information which they admit it would be in the national interest to make widely known.

A typical instance of this obstruction or lack of co-ordination occurred last week. It became privately known to me that the U.K. cotton firms had been circularised with a notice from the Ministry of Supply Cotton Control telling them that H.M.G. was going to take over all supplies of hitherto privately held cotton in the U.K. Intimation was also given to them - no doubt from the control - that a new merchanting company had been formed for the purpose of distributing government cotton stocks to spinners.

I immediately inquired at the Ministry of Supply press office in London, where I was told that investigations would be set on foot at once and I would be advised later. The time was then about 11.30. By 15.00 I had still received no reply to my inquiry and I accordingly made investigations in the market, where I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of the official announcement and on which basis I was able to write my 39 - 2 -story. At 17.00 the Ministry of Supply press office telephoned me [illegible] say they had made inquiries from the proper quarters, who said that they “had no statement to make” - the answer that one has come to expect from government officials on so many matters and the answer that brought France to her doom last year.

This case shows, in my opinion, the complete unawareness of the Cotton Control of the Ministry of Supply of the need for making known important decisions to anyone. They would apparently rather let the news leak through abroad and at home - probably in garbled form - than give an answer to an honest inquiry from the press. It also reveals a grotesque lack of co-ordination and leads one almost to suspect a laziness minimum in government departments which Lord Simon has assured us does not in fact exist.

Another case of this kind occurred last Friday, when the “Times” Bradford correspondent issued a story that the Ministry of Supply Wool Controller had made an announcement stabilising the price of wool issued for certain purposes until some future date. I again applied to the Ministry of Supply press section for information, but it was not until the following Saturday morning that any reply was forthcoming from then. They then told me that the announcement had “already appeared in certain northern papers and could be regarded as official”. What the announcement actually was, however, they were quite unable to say.

The Ministry of Food is another department which suffers from decentralisation and lack of co-operation in this respect. On several recent occasions I have had occasion to inquire from their Press Section in London as to the truth of reports that contracts for the supply of tea and sugar to the U.K. had been concluded or not.

In the case of tea, every broker in Mincing Lane was talking of the details, but it took the Ministry of Food nearly a week after the inception of my inquiries to make any move. They then issued a full-dress press statement - quite an unnecessary procedure. All that was needed was a short conversation with myself or any other accredited person. Furthermore, they issued their press statement on a Saturday afternoon, thus ensuring the minimum of satisfactory treatment for it.

In the case of sugar, I was unable again to glean any information from the London press office and consequently had to make inquiries from a well-posted market connexion. He told me, however, that he could say no more until the Ministry of Food gave him permission to do so. The Ministry of Food at Colwyn Bay refused this permission and the matter had to be issued in a very unsatisfactory form.

The London press office of the Ministry of Food continually apologise to me for the complete absence of co-operation between their colleagues at Colwyn Bay and themselves, I understand that when an official of their department recently visited Colwyn Bay to try to ease the liaison, he was told that official policy was at that moment in the direction of giving less rather than more information.

I have cited four cases of obstruction. There are, of course, many many more which I can recall, but which it would take too long to recite.

The conclusions which emerge from these instances are nevertheless very grave. They are:-

(a) The accredited nominees of the Ministry of Information charged with projecting the British economic scene are not meeting with sufficient response from the Departments to enable them to fulfil their task with all possible efficiency. This is due to lack of co-ordination, misconception of the whole publicity situation and laziness.

(b) The sale of the services thus emitted abroad is consequently being hindered and a lesser volume of foreign exchange is thus being achieved than might have been.

(c) Owing to the lack of properly issued official or semi-official news on many matters of grave economic importance, garbled versions of the truth, no doubt injurious to the objects of British economic policy as a whole, are allowed to be published or to leave the country in the form of private communications.

(d) The trade of the country is not maximised to the extent it should be by the dissemination of proper economic intelligence relative to Britain as a whole. You cannot expect people to trade with you unless they have knowledge of what you stand for, and they have less knowledge than they should have if arrangements for the supply of news worked as they were intended.

There is no evidence of any unofficial quarters being anything other than extremely willing to give all assistance in their power to make our various outward services projecting the economic war effort the success which trade knows perfectly well they should be.

1 should also remind you that there are certain government departments, of which the Ministry of Economic Warfare is the leading example, who are notable for their energetic co-operation and assistance and to whom we are deeply grateful for the farsighted policy thus shown.