TOO MANY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3262, 12 May 1943, Page 3

TOO MANY

ILL-CONSIDERED RUMOUR

UNPATRIOTIC BEHAVIOUR

CALEDONIAN CHIEF’S ADDRESS

Reference to the rebuke recently given to rumour-mongers by the Commissioner of Police, Mr D. J. Cummings, was made by the Chief of the Te Aroha Caledonian Society, Mr N. G. McLeod, in the course of his address to members attending a recent Ingleside. The Commissioner’s rebuke had

followed grossly exaggerated rumours of a disturbance in Wellington between New Zealand and American servicemen. Actually the matter had quickly been dealt with by the police and military provosts and there was not a single person injured, much less taken to hospital or killed as the rumours stated. The only arrests were of a New. Zealand .civilian and a New Zealand serviceman. No United States men were arrested or charged. The Commissioner couid not undeistand how the rumour had begun, and added That the authorities were going to deal very firmly with anyone who started trouble between members of the Armed Forces. Discrediting War Effort

Commenting on this Mr McLeod said there was ample evidence of people in this country creating rumours, -based on the flimsiest evidence, or no evidence at all, in the hope that they would spread, gathering detail as they went, with the express purpose of discrediting our own war ■effort and even more particularly that of our Allies.

The speaker quoted methods being adopted in America to combat campaigns launched by the Nazi propaganda machine and appealed to his audience to spike all rumours, for to be successful rumours must be spread by unsuspecting loyal citizens. Americans Down Rumours I The magazine “Fortune” upon I which Mr McLeod built the portion of his address relating to America, impressively set out the methods by which enemy propaganda attempts to set white American against black American, Christian American against Jewish American, and gener-

ally to make every group, creed' and •class suspicious of the other. An example of rumours, fed to Negroes is that coloured soldiers are being used as suicide troops, while that fed to whites is that negroes say this is a

white man’s war, not theirs. As in the case of other rumours decrying the war, efforts made by the Jews, the army records of draftings, casualties and deMs of heroism alone give the lie. A Grave Rumour Perhaps the rumour of gravest import to us, continued Mr McLeod,

was also set out in “Fortune.” This was the attempt to set all Americans against the English. Typical persistent rumours circulated in America were that Britain keeps all her troops safe at home while she fights to the last Canadian or Australian. “Every English soldier,” says “Fortune,” emphatically, “for whom there is shipping space has for months

been shipped out of England to the fighting fronts overseas. Out of all casualties suffered by the British Empire so far during the war 71 per cent, have been soldiers from the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Spike those rumours!” Think for Yourselves , Again quoting “Fortune,” Mr McLeod concluded by reading the following paragraph and appealing to his audience to read New Zealander for American and change the other

groups to their New Zealand counterpart.

“Rumours can only be started by the Nazis. To be successful they must be spread by unsuspecting, loyal Americans. And they are spread because of the cleverness of the Nazi machine. Therefore, no matter how true a rumour sounds, or how seemingly reliable the source, take it for granted that any rumour which would breed distrust of negro for white, gentile for Jew, American for Englishman, is enemy propaganda trying to weaken us.”