As already reported orally, on the 18th July I read to Lord Caldecote your Secret minute to me of the preceding day¹ and gave him a verbatim copy of the representations contained therein.

On reading the words 'certain persons' Lord Caldecote said 'What is the meaning of this? I know of only one person. I suppose this refers to Tegart'. I agreed and said I thought there were others. He said that he could assure me the Government had no part in Sir Charles Tegart's visit. I got the impression that he attached no importance to it.²

He was not aware of the visits of journalists nor did he understand how, under existing regulations, they had been able to obtain permits to leave this country. He appreciated the objections to these visits and would do what he could with the Permit authorities to prevent further visits in future. I spoke to Lord Caldecote on the 6th instant and asked him how the matter now stood. He told me that he had taken the matter up with the Permit authorities and he thought they were now firmly refusing permits to anyone outside the limited categories of persons entitled to travel.

On the reference in your minute about the campaign in the British press he repeated his former statements to me that he had tried to get these articles stopped. He had that evening spoken to the Minister for Information who told him that he had seen the Lobby Correspondents of the preceding night and had asked them to 'let up' on Ireland. A similar request would be made to the press people generally. Lord Caldecote said that whilst he hoped for a good response on the part of the Press he thought it was too much to hope that there would not be some 'black sheep'. I suggested that it would have been better to have stopped these ignorant and misleading statements earlier. Lord Caldecote doubted whether it could have been done. In the absence of any real power any attempt on his part to stop the articles when they were, so to speak, in the full spate, would have provoked an outcry from the Press which would have made matters much worse.