PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 184, 19 May 1939, Page 4

PROPAGANDA MACHINE

BRITISH AND BERMAN METHODS CONTRASTED ,'u x f LONDON, April 20.— Lord JJaJifax’s declaration in the Mouse of Lords yesterday that truth is obscured and darkened by violent* propaganda and also that .Britain would become, involved jn a.war only because there was no' other way of defending the causes andi values which are more important than life itself, are throwing into bold relief .British and Borman propaganda methods. It is .asked how 8,00P,€00 people within tlie Reich are ever to hear Lord Halifax’s solemn pronouncements. It is .pointed out that unless these, words are heard and appreciated throughout Italy aiitl ' (Jertiuihy their value as a deterrent is diminished, .since the. masses are unaware that Britain and France are calmly prepared' to see London-and' Paris l re? duced to* heaps of brick if they are forced into war. jI - . Germany’s colossal propaganda machine is engaging, attention, Because of its undoubted power to persuade vast masses o'.f people, to believe that ■black is white. There are coiiiircting views -on the value of the results of the •machine.' Nevertheless, it is known that the question whether Britain should not again 1 mak<£ hmeffort to broaden the basis of its maebine

for counteracting liosiie propaganda paricuiarly anion Italians and Germans,, has considered for some time. Hymns of Hate. Critics maintain that the British system i.s weak. It is- pointed out that while the German public was first aware of President Roosevelt's message on April 15 through the British Broadcasting Corporation’s foreign broadcasts, whatever advantage was so gained has bjpen dissolved since in the blaze of ’German radio comment, all denunciatory. Reflecting public and official interest, the Gaily Telegraph referring to Dr. Goebbels’ speech, car the occasion of Herr Hitler’s birthday, says: “Dr. Goebbels, with his slavish satellites, all too soon falls back upon the conventional epithets for the Englishman —bloody, base, brutal, ruthless, liar, coward, covetous, hypocrite, and thief.” “All this humourless hate-staff in the'German and! Italian press is overdone. It is too consciously false to what Germans and Italians know of .England, as friend or foe.”

The Scotsman expresses the opposite view. “The German peoples,’’ it states, “love peace, but have undergone a grave change as a result of Britain’s pledge to Roland, because the pledge provided the Nazi propagandists with a peg on which to< hang hymns of hate, lvitli the result that Britain, is portrayed as determined to strangle Germany. This new Nazi propaganda has created an abyss between Britain and Germany.”