EMPIRE’S WAR EFFORT

Evening Star, Issue 23699, 5 October 1940, Page 12

EMPIRE’S WAR EFFORT

WHOLE WEIGHT IHTO SCALE (British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, October 4. (Received October 5, at 12.30 p.m.) , The Minister of Information, referring ,to the inauguration of the special Empire campaign on tbe home front, said there might be suggestions that now, at one of the most intense phases of the war, such a campaign should be postponed. li lam convinced that this view is mistaken, and this is precisely the time to bring home to our people that England does not stand alone and that she possesses immense

reserves of men, material, and goodwill.” Mr Cooper pointed out that the British Commonwealth was not only a European Power, but an American Power, an Asiatic Power, and a Pacific Power as well. All the various parts of the Empire were throwing their whole weight into the scale. “ I don’t think the people of this country appreciate sufficiently the magnitude of the gesture voluntarily made by the dominions in training men and sending them overseas to fight for the Mother 'Country.” ► German propaganda, said Mr Cooper, had been both active and successful in many parts of the world, and he instanced America, where, during the recent scries of lectures he delivered, ho almost always found the Indian situation misunderstood. This was because the true point of view had not been fairly presented in the United States. '

The Ministry of Information since the outbreak of the war had been engaged in long-term publicity about the Empire, both at home and abroad. This irks part of the Ministry’s general aim of telling the -world the facts about the Empire war effort and the cause for •which the Commonwealth was fighting. This publicity would be intensified in a special 10-week Empire campaign on the home front.

After a year of steadily-growing war effort the Empire’s vast reserves of manpower, industrial equipment, raw materials, and foodstuffs had been mobilised to a point at which they must soon become a vital factor in winning tho'war. . The countries of the Commonwealth had rallied because they were free and bad learned how to defeat! freedom by joint action when it was threatened. The Minister said the second purpose of the campaign was to remind the public that it was the British Commonwealth with its principle of free part-

nership that could offer the world new

hope for the future, and he contrasted " this with the Nazis’ “ new world order,” which was merely a resurrection of the old vicious idea of a slave empire in which subjugated race* were held down, by force and exploited for the benefit of the “ master folk.” Speaking of the Empire’s growth, the Minister said it had been gradually transformed from a centrally-controlled organisation into a commonwealth of equal partners. It was Britain’s hope that India would soon take her place in this free and equal partnership. The colonies were not regarded as possessions to be exploited, but as communities of people, for whom Britain was carrying out a trust, as a guardian does for a ward.