HELP FOR RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 September 1941, Page 6

HELP FOR RUSSIA

HUNDREDS OF FIGHTERS BEING SENT MR CHURCHILL DEFENDS MINISTER. REMARKS IN RECENT SPEECH. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) RUGBY, September 11. Questioned in the House of Commons regarding remarks in a recent speech by the Minister of Aircraft Production. L.'-Col. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, on his attitude to Russia—quoted by a delegate at the Trades Union Congress in Edinburg last week —the Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, said: “Versions which have been given the public of the remarks made at a private gathering at the end of July by the Minister of Aircraft Production bear a construction which represents neither the policy of the British Government nor the views of Col. Moore-Brabazon. I happen to know his views because, on the day Hitler attacked Russia. I told him, on the telephone, the line I was going to take that night, of full and wholehearted support for Russia, and he expressed his enthusiastic assent. He emphasised this sentiment at a public speech at Chertsey on August 9. He has been ardently at work, sending hundreds of fighter aircraft to Russia, many of which already have got there. Therefore the phrasing of what he said at a private gathering, taken from its context, might well be misconstrued. I am satisfied that he was and is in the fullest accord with the policy the British Government is earnestly pursuing.”