TRUTH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 69, 24 June 1942, Page 4

TRUTH

IF there is anything* that the average Britisher hungers for at the present time it is to know more of the facts about the conduct of the war. At no other time in our checkered history were we more united as a people or more intensely loyal to a cause, yet the nation's patience under the idiotic strain o.f censorship and spoonfed propaganda dished out by the official 'news machine' is fast wearing threadbare. Unless the 8.8.C. is willing- to treat the peoples of Empire as adults with a little, genuine backbone to their make-up, there will soon burst upon their complacent ears such a storm of righteous wrath and dissatisfaction, that it will even reach our ''Special Observers" in Libya and in Russia. We want the truth —not the eyewash and the sugared pills which led us to believe that victory can be cloaked under the crisp caption of strategic withdrawal, not the honeyed Oxford accent which is capable of making our evacuation from a key point, sound like a withdrawal from a position which has no military value. We want the facts, and surely we who have so close a link with Libya are entitled to them. Propaganda has become so pathetically engrained in the official mind that the very weapon designed by Northcliff to discomfort out' enemies is being trained upon our own peoples. Well', if it wasn't so painfully transparent w T e might be expected to swallow it with a grimace, but our education in the subtle art has lifted us from the infant stage and nothing will satisfy but truth. Was there ever such maudlin drivel put over the air in all seriousness than the strength of our positions in Libya, before the amazing Rommel showed us unmistakeably what was taking place. For a whole week we were filled with admiration for the gallant Free French in their lone fight. Then the South African a,nd Indian forces were represented as occupying impregnable positions, to which the only avenues occurred through widespread minefields, which were -under the direct command of our guns. Rommel s tactics were suicidal, —he must capitulate or perish. Two weeks later we find the Eighth Army back behind the Egyptian border and, Tobruk hallowed by the Australian defence of eighteen months tenacity; once again in enemy iia,nds. And still the maddening assertions of "successful with drawals," 'complete destruction of war material," and "the scorched earth policy." The issue in Egypt is grave, and prospects are worse. It is obvious to any person with a grain of thinking power. Therefore why can't we be told and told plainly. It is better surely to let us fully realise the Empire's position than to molly coddle us into a state of easy-going security, fed by a loving announcer who is set up as a national shock absorber. Let us unmuzzle the news and let us hear it as it actually is, without dilution or adulteration. If the time comes for a supreme test, we will then be prepared for it and can be counted on to fight to the last and like men. We are urged to ignore the insidious broadcasts from the Axis countries —no decent citizen has any desire to tune in, but the danger to-day is that events of vital' importance to us all (unpleasant ones of course) are announced a week ahead of the 8.8.C. information. To all intents and purposes are must be nursed over the rougher stretches like a lot of semrinvalids while the authorities concoct a lot of plausible and high-sounding military terms to cover the awkwardness of a British retreat. Churchill promised us 'blood, sweat and tears/ The nation is prepared for it but those who formulate the nature of our news bulletins are still apparently suffering from a complex which is something between the fastidiousness of a Victorian grand aunt and the inexplicable Nipponese regard for "face.;'