RUMUOURS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 33, 25 March 1942, Page 4

RUMUOURS

DAME RUMOUR was never so much to the fore as during times of stress. The war lias given her ample scope to ply her trade and those of her cronies who delight in re-assert-ing- their allegiance upon the slightest provocation are unfortunately becoming a genuine menace, now that danger threatens our very homes. The BEACON has been asked to ventilate a warning against all deliberate rumour-mon-gering, and in doing so considers the job a privilege in order to administer a little just spleen against those viscious individuals who seem to have made a hobby of spieading these unfounded tales in order to cause needless alarm and fear. An example of what even uncertainty can bring upon a community was furnished last week-end when a number of quite well-intentioned people passed on an item of news gleaned from an enemy broadcast. The news of one of our greatest ships being lost spread consternation and horror, but it transpired that the persons who mad,e themselves the channels of information, exceeded even Tokyo's wildest expectations, for the name given out by the wiley Jap. propagandists was similar in sounding, to the great ship which some of Whakata.ne's listeners quickly assumed must have been destroyed. There was probably more depression caused by that false: news in this community than any other event over the week-end—and that effect was exactly what the enemy propagandists desired. In this instance however, we improved even upon their guile. We as a people have got to learn to 'take' even the wildest assertion from enemy radios with the proverbial grain of salt. The most staggering announcements must leave us unpurturbed. We. cannot forget that the enemy is but using jtihje weapon; which we as a belligerent party in the last war created, and brought to a high degree of perfection. If we therefore become undermined by the effects of our own weapon,, when turned against us by a new foeman twenty years later, it speaks little for our sense of balance and progress. Propaganda, but for the dignity of a war for fieedom, would be given its teal title—lies. Well we know it, and the pity of it is that we were the first (through the Northcliff leaflets) to patent the cloak of deception which covers such an unscrupulous method of destroying morale. Still there it is,, and to-day we find the chickens coming home to roost, in our own hectic reactions to the blatant utterances of a hardboiled American educated Japanese announcer, with as much conscience as a gold nugget. We cannot, and would not deprive our peoples of the privilege of listening in to which ever country they so desire. That is the difference between Democracy and Dictatorship, but in granting that right, we do so in the belief that the average Britisher has those powers of balance and deduction which render him proof against the most staggering lies,, or dramatic assertions which the enemy care to fling across space. We can maintain that trust, and will maintain it by rooting out the spineless alarmists in our midst, known familiarly and intimately to every one of us—the rumour-mongers.