The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JULY 19. 1946 TRUTH STAMPEDED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 1, 19 July 1946, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JULY 19. 1946 TRUTH STAMPEDED

CORRESPONDENCE figuring in this paper recently has proved once again the growing disregard for recording the truth. The modern babel of tongues, ‘isms’ and political cults the world over has given rise to the fashion of distortion and exaggeration which leaves the average man a sceptic of the first water. Even the ‘naked’ truth which is so hard to find, and more difficult to believe, leaves humanity coldly aloof, so that the finest things pass him by, while the clamouring chorus of the lesser conversions, with their tinsel and their bone-headed glamour capture his imagination and lead him blindly into the tumult of vicious controversies to which there is no end but conflicting intolerance and international chaos. It is sickening to read and hear the plausable champions of this and that subject deliberately and systematically misleading the public in order to gratify their own egotistical fanaticism. Their slogan seems to be ‘attract converts at all costs irrespective of the methods employed.’ The ‘rock’ of truth upon which the Christian world in the past has based the whole of its ethical interpretation was deserted when the insidious word ‘propaganda’ was coined during World War I. Here we saw the first official act on the part of nations ostensibly fighting to restore ‘truth’ to a bewildered world, standardising lies as a means to an end. Under the blatant banner of ‘propaganda’ the most ridiculous profane and irresponsible lies were glossed over and painted up so as to resemble the truth. The weapon in its refined form became accepted as legitimate in war. Departments were created for its perpetration by the leading nations. Hitler carried it to gigantic extremes in peace. Today it permeates all nations and is generally regarded as the smart thing to foist over the unsuspecting public by Governments, by organisations, by business firms and by social movements. The man in the street considers it part and parcel of his accomplishments to mislead and to distort in order to draw attention to whom—that all-important person—himself. The serious truth, be it good or be it bad, cannot be considered for an instant. It must before being retailed, be given flaming headings in the press, or highsounding distorted adjectives by speakers before it can arrest the eye and catch the public ear. What possible good, we ask can our vaunted educational system with its moral and ethical training achieve, if when our sons and daughters have passed through its hands, they are emptied out into a world from which all regard for the truth has vanished, and in which the majority are apt to regard with ridicule those staunch adherants who still cling to its faultless simplicity. Where are we heading, we ask, if we begin to think that we cannot believe our world leaders, our legislators, our diplomat—aye even our fellow-men ? Unless this blight which is so all-pervading, is cleansed and the sober facts of humanity’s problems brought home to every thinking man and woman, we have no hesitation in predicting a further and greater calamity for the human race, about which the confused parties will have less notion of what they are fighting for than in the past.