LEADING ARTICLES. 



275 



WAR CORRESPONDENTS AS SPIES. 



The war correspondent has fallen on 

 evil days, and m the 'Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury William Maxwell gives the reader 

 an inside view of the causes which have 

 led to this depreciation. The writer's 

 personal experiences enable him to 

 speak with authority, and he hrst notes 

 that " the telegraph has made the corre- 

 spondent a menace to the army which he 

 may have every desire to serve." 



In practice he says it works out m 

 this way : — 



Tihe puri:)ase of an army being to defoat 

 "the enemy, nob to provide interesting 

 " oopy " for neiwspinpers. the commander in 

 the fiekl makes it Iri.s t)n8in>es.s to pnt obstacles 

 between the corretsjiondent an-d the telegraph 

 AViire. He may di.scharge hi.s dnty t;i lii.s coun- 

 try ruthlessly or delinately. hut the result is 

 always the same. War l)reabs out in the 

 ■ciamp, and sooner nr later some disaffected 

 oorrespondent " lireaks away" after a battie, 

 and, making all sjteed to the nearest tele- 

 graph office beyonil the military control, des- 

 patches are uncensored messages in which he 

 m-ay have been tem])ted to reflect on the 

 capacity of the oommander whom lie has 

 dtserted. 



The newspajjer readc^r knows UiotMng of 

 the discreditalih.' conditions un'der wbicih this 

 message is sent. He s<h's only that a certain 

 correspondent has "scored." But the effect 

 is disastrous to the correspondents who luave 

 kept faith, and ^abided by their written pro- 

 mise to submit all deispat-olies to the censor. 

 To natural indignation at being defeated by 

 a disloyal colleague is a-dded the conscious- 

 ness tlhat they are looked upon Avith increased 

 distrust by the military authorities, and are 

 subjected to sterneir daisci]dinc. 



Hence the ever-increasing restrictions 



which have reduced the war correspon- 



dent to a ci])her. Mr. Maxwell speaks 

 highly of the courtesy extended to him 

 by the higher army officers, whether Bri- 

 tish, Japanese, or Bulgarian, but his love 

 for the censor is not so pronounced : — 



The Bulgarians followed the example of the 

 Japanese in apjjointing as censors academic 

 ])rofes.so:rs and school teachers. Few of them, 

 however, were men of the same culture and 

 experience as the Japanese. They were 

 seilected, for the most part, because of their 

 supposed familiarity with foreign languages, 

 and, unlike the Japanese, were given no 

 military nank above that of the common 

 .soldier. The rasult was disastj-ous. The 

 majority of these censo.rs had neither cour- 

 age nor common sense. They behaved like 

 ushers, in con.stant dread of the displeasure 

 of the headmaster. No telegnam, however 

 innocent, was safe in their hands, and any 

 mention of guns or rifles brought on parox- 

 ysms of fright. 



The peculiar exploits of Lieut. Wag- 

 ner come in for special treatment, and 

 one's belief in the "telegram from the 

 seat of war " is rudely shaken. 



Further light on the ways of corre- 

 spondents is thrown by George Pilcher 

 in the same review in his article, " In the 

 Chatalja Lines." Mr. Pilcher resents 

 Mr. Bennett's wholesale condemnation, 

 although his own appreciation is some- 

 what lagging : — 



Tlie truth is that, taking the Emglish cor- 

 respondents as a body of men, tiliey were no 

 disgrace to their ooinitrymen. They were 

 almost always honest, and they showed end- 

 less initiative. 



A DISAPPEARING NATION. 



Why does the population of France 

 continue to decline m spite of all [iro- 

 tests and the many remedies suggested? 

 This IS the problem discussed by Dr. P. 

 Gallois m an article in the mid-February 

 number of the Nouvclle Rcviie. 



The decrease of the French birth-rate, 

 he writes, has attained disquieting pro- 

 portions, the number of births exceeding- 

 only by a few thousands the number oi 

 deaths. In certain years the number of 

 deaths has even exceeded the number of 

 births. While the cities are attracting 

 the rural population, the country dis- 



tricts are fast becoming depopulated. 

 This danger to France is all the more 

 serious, because the neighbouring coun- 

 tries have a much higher birth-rate. In 

 1870 France and Germany each had a 

 po])nlation of al)out 35 millions ; at the 

 present time the i^opulation of France 

 scarcely numbers 40 millions, while that 

 of Germany is nearly 60 millions. At 

 Paris the German population is so large 

 that Germans are wont to sa\- the iM'ench 

 capital is a city of the German Eminre. 

 France has not enough people to inhabit 

 her colonies. 



