AIR PROPAGANDA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1939, Page 6

AIR PROPAGANDA

REPLY TO CHALLENGE BY MR SCRIMGEOUR DENIAL OF SOMETHING NOT ALLEGED. COMMENT BY FARMERS’ UNION SECRETARY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. In a statement, Mr O. G. Thomas, Provincial Secretary of the MakaraHutt Valley Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, said: —“In a broadcast talk last evening, Mi- C. G. Scrimgeour issued a challenge in which he offered to resign his position as Director of Commercial Broadcasting, never talk over the air again and pay £lOO to a charity, if anyone proved before a judge of the Supreme Court that he had ever called the farmers of New Zealand ‘Public Enemy No. 3.’ Such a-challenge is empty and meaningless, for the reason that (so far as I know) nobody ever said he did make this statement. The points covered in a resolution passed by my executive were: — (1) “A protest against the air being used for propaganda against people who have no right of reply. (2) “A protest against a civil servant ' being allowed to broadcast abuse of the Farmers’ Union. (3) “That the people of New Zealand should recognise that the farmer is ‘Public Benefactor No. I.’ (4) “That his organisation should be respected and not be pilloried as ‘Public Enemy No. 3.’ (5) “That for the Government to permit the sabbath to be degraded and ■ a national organisation to be insulted ovei 1 the air is just asking for trouble.” Mr Thomas added: “Mr Scrimgeour acknowledges the correctness of point No. 3 as he used the phrase ‘Public Benefactor, No. I.’, although without acknowledging its source. Various listeners heard Mr Scrimgeour’s voice on a preceding Sunday referring to the Farmers Union as ‘Public Enemy No 3.’ It may be that his reference was contained in a letter said by Mr Scrimgeour to have been received by him, and that Mr Scrimgeour himself was not the author of the letter.” Mr Thomas said the members of his executive considered that listeners found it difficult to know when the director was quoting the views of others and when he was stating his own views. The executive had objected to one action of Mr Scrimgeour’s and his reply had been a challenge to prove something else.