The Washington herald., 1911-04-09
SECRETS OF STATE.

needle than for prying eyes to pene-
uate the arcana in which state secrets
are hidden" And yet Disraeli ought to
have known. even without the incredulous
laughter that greeted his statement, that
he was talking nonsense OF course,
state secrets, like murder, will out"
in spite Of every precaution to gaurd
them. 1t always has been so, and, al
though the leakage never was less than
In our time, it probably always will be
SO, so long as man is human and
curious.
In the old days the practice Of steal
ing state secrets was much commoner
and easier than today. A century ago,
1t is said, more than one of the men
who used to sweep out the House of
Commons made 4 snug nestegg by COL
lecting the torn scraps of paper that
Uttered the floor near the treasury
bench and giving them to enterprising
journalists. By piecing the fragments
together many valuable item of in
formation was icund and made public
Even locked drawers and double doors
are not proof against the determined
secret hunter. Once, at least, a jour-
nallst found his way into the home
secretary's sanctuary, picked a lock, and
pulled out a plum" in the shape of a
state document OF secrecy and value,
which he promptly put into the hands
of his editor in exchange for a sub
stantial sum. And, not many years ago,
copying clerk at the British foreign
Office took copy of a very important
memorandum on negotiations with Rus
STA, which came into his hands, and sold
1t for large sum to a leading news
paper.
Cabinet ministers themselves even have
not always been safe guardians of their
own secrets When William " of Eng
land, in 1884 "unCeremoniously kicked
OUT Melbourne and his cabinet. the fact
was kept d profound secret until
Brougham chanced to call on the prime
minister on his way home from din
ner, and Melbourne told him the news
in the greatest confidence" Nc sooner
had BrOugham said ''SOod-by'' to Mel
bourne than off he went, straight to the
Times Office and, for some inscrutabl
reason. told the whole story, which was
made public the next day.
Twelve years later. when Sir Robert
reels administration decided to bring in
a bill for the repeal Of the corn laws,
in spite OF the premiers declaration only
few weeks earlier that he would stick
fast by them, rs I related in a previous
letter, Sidney Herbert went to dine
with Mrs. Norton. a beautiful society
hostess, and was supposed to have al
lowed the secret to be wheedled out of
him. AS soon as her last guest had left,
it was then alleged, Mrs. Norton drove
post haste to the Times Office and i'm
parted her precious news to the editor
IN exchange for big check. AS mat
ter Of fact, however. it was Lord Aber-
deem. the foreign secretary. who 'let the
cat out of the bag within a few hours
of the cabinet decision, by taking the
ncws to the Times editor himself.
There is no doubt. however, that Mrs
Norton and many another society lady
have exercised their charms and fascina-
tions in the discovery of cabinet secrets,
and have made substantial additions to
their pin money by the process.
But so varied are the ways in which
these secrets may leak out that the won-
der is they contrive to conceal them
selves so well. Carelessness on the part
of ministers themselves has been re-
sponsible for many a leakage, as. for in
stance. when, in 1898, Mr.. Charles Her
ries left on his library table a list of
Wellington's new cabinet of which he
was to be a member. a visitor, ushered
into his library during his absence. saw
the list, made a copy Of it. and handed
IT TO the Morning Chronicle editor. In
another case, an important state docu-
ment was found in a minister's coat
pocket by his valet and appropriated: !:
and in still another case, the impress of
a high officials letter on a hotel blotting-
pad revealed a secret which caused con-
sternation and led to its writer's with
drawal from public life. Since 1859 the
divulging of state secrets is a criminal
offense in Britain, for which the law
provides exemplary punishment.
So far as the printing of important
state documents goes. nothing could ex-
ceed the care with which their contents
are guarded in England. In the foreign
Office the printing is done exclusively by
an old and trusted compositor, in a pri-
vate and carefully guarded room When
il is necessary to give the work to one
of the government printers, as in the
case OF the draft of long bill, the copy
is given in small sections, not exceeding
three lines of type, to a large number
of compositors- The arrangement of
these sections in proper order is the duty
of a trustworthy overseer, who alone
knows the contents of the bill. And the
moment the necessary proofs are printed
the type is broken up and distributed
AN act of Parliament. sir, is a serious
thing, a very serious thing" Speaker
Brand once said to frivolous member
in tone of grave rebuke, "and should
be protected from unseemly humor."
And certainly the statute book usually
is as little calculated to provoke a smile
as amy dry-as-dust volume on archae-
ology. But it has its amusing corners,
nevertheless, if one is only diligent
enough to look for them. In fact, some
times they leap to the eye, as in that
clause in the Irish bank act of 1sos,
which provides that ''the profits shall be
equally divided and the residue go to the
governor" and in an old-time act once
quoted by Lord Palmerston, which pro-
vided for the possibility Of Good Friday
falling on a Sunday happy thought
of which even the late Maj O'Gorman
might have been proud.
The most enthusiastic believer in vac
ctnation might take alarm at one sec
ton in an act which made vaccination
compulsory in Scotland. By a section
of this act the registrar was ordered
Ito make out a list of the names and ad-
to transmit or lodge a certificate of vac
cination. and upon receipt of the list or
order of a vaccinator appointed to
vaccinate the persons named in the list,
he, in pursuance of such order, shall vac
cinate the persons named therein"
AS it was the duty of parents to for
ward the certificate. 1t was thus clear