Beatty's suppression of the Harper and Bacon reports

How hard did Beatty try to bury the Harper and Bacon reports, and which was harder to suppress?

Bacon's report was harder to bury, while Beatty tried harder against Harper; publication as books gave both arguments a much wider audience.

Beatty is described as making the stronger suppression effort against Harper, although Bacon's report proved harder to contain. Harper and Bacon responded by publishing their work as books. An official report might have circulated mainly among civil servants, MPs, and specialist newspaper readers. A commercial book could be serialized, reproduced, and read by a broad interested public. Suppression therefore increased the reports' visibility and made their arguments more difficult to manage.