SHEARER’S PROPAGANDA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 794, 15 October 1929, Page 9

SHEARER’S PROPAGANDA

EVIL INFLUENCE IN 1927 AT GENEVA FIRST LORD’S TESTIMONY United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Times Cable. Reccl. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Monday. The First Lord of the Admiralty in the Baldwin Government, Viscount Bridgeman. has written an important letter to “The Times” in connection with William B. Shearer’s Geneva activities in 1927, as agent for American shipbuilding. corporations. Describing “gross misrepresentation of our objects, with the obvious intention of stirring up ill-feeling against England,” he recalls an incident in the Three Powers* Conference in which his statement that Britain did not intend to dispute the United States claim for parity was deliberately misrepresented.

Viscount Bridgeman then became aware of Shearer’s activities. Shearer, he discovered, had obtained a Press ticket to enter the meetings, and was said to be distributing widely violent attacks on the British policy and good faith, and monstrous mis-statements concerning her actual proposals. Viscount Bridgeman expressed surprise that Shearer was given a Press ticket, but he could do nothing beyond refuse to admit him to other Press conferences.

“I am thankful that President Hoover has taken action. I only wish it had been possible before the close of the Geneva 1927 Conference. It would then have been clear, as it has been now, that Britain had no intention of building in competition with the United States.”