OFFICIAL SECRETS of State must not be disclosed under pain of severe punishment ; nor may an unauthorised person attempt to obtain any informa tion about them. The Official Secrets Act, 1911, which is dealt with fully in the Appendix, Vol. II., under the title ESPIONAGE, makes it a misdemeanour to enter a fortress for the purpose of wrongfully obtaining information, and the offence extends to an arsenal, factory, dockyard, camp, ship, office, or other like lace belonging to the King, and into which the intruder is not entitled to enter. ho also does it to obtaining, communicating, or being in the wrongful posses sion of, or control over, any document, sketch, plan, model, or knowledge of anything relating to the private naval or military affairs of the State. The prohibition against breach of official trust particularly affects one who, by means of his holding or having held an office under the King, has lawfully or unlawfully either obtained possession of or control over a document, sketch, plan, or model, or acquired information. He will be guilty of such a breach
if at any time he corruptly or contrary to his official duty communicates or attempts to communicate that document, sketch, plan, model, or infor mation to some one to whom it ought not to be communicated in the interest of the State, or otherwise in the public interest. Contractors come within the prohibition, for by section 2 (1) of the above Act it applies to any person holding a contract with any department of the Government of the United Kingdom, or with the holder of any office under His Majesty the King as such holder, where such contract involves an obligation of secrecy, and to any person employed by any person or body of persons holding such a contract, who is under a like obligation of secrecy, as if the person holding the contract and the persons so employed were respectively holders of an office under His Majesty the King.