BASELESS STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 221, 17 September 1940, Page 7

BASELESS STORY.

N.Z. TROOPS "REVOLT." Report Never Published By New York Paper, — / United Press Association.—Copyright. (Reed. 10 a.m.) NEW YORK, Sept. 16. The "New York Times" received & cablegram from the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand, protesting against the German and Rome overseas radio broadcast quoting the "New York Times" of September 8 as the authority for the report that New Zealand troops revolted against embarking for England for war. Mr. Frnier called the report baseless and fantastic, and expressed certainty that "The Times" had not published it, but requesting an authoritative denial. "The Times" has issued a denial, declaring that it never printed such a report.

From the Te Rapa isolation camp a medical officer attached to the Third Echelon units under canvas has put forth an interesting explanation for Rome's outrageous mis-statement in the broadcast referred to, says the Hamil* ton correspondent of the "Star." He says the mild type of measles present among the troops, which is usually referled to as "German" measles, is known in medical terms of the German language as "rebella." Apparently, he suggests, Rome heard of an outbreak of "rebella" in New Zealand among the troops of the Third Echelon and immediately seized upon the translation "rebellion" for a broadcast of blatant propaganda. From the one word, incorrectly translated, they worked up a truly amazing line of lies. And so that is how the Rome radio works! Maybe the author of the broadcast had a scanty knowledge of English and a worse idea of the German language and was too lazy to check his dictionary of translation. Maybe, on the other hand, he translated well enough, but suddenly had the "bright" inspiration that a story Of rebellion in the Dominion would sound very well in a propaganda broadcast.