ANTIDOTE TO BLOCKADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1941, Page 6

ANTIDOTE TO BLOCKADE

NEED OF COUNTERING NAZI PROPAGANDA. Blockade is a terrible weapon, and its effects in the long run are terrible,” writes Dr. William Paton in his book, “The Church and the New Order.” It affects everyone, not only the minority who can take long views, but the mass of the common people in their daily lives. Public discussion of every kind in the countries in question is under the control of the invader, and the whole force of propaganda, directed by men who have devoted their lives to the study of it and whom no scruples of either truth or consistency deter from any falsehood, will inevitably be directed to making the most of the blockade. Propaganda will play upon minds and feelings rendered to some extent susceptible. Britain has not been so popular upon the continent of Europe that it will be enough to show that the blockade is necessary to a British victory or British defence; it must be made clear that what these peoples have to suffer is for the sake of their own freedom and for the achievement of a new order of peace and well-being. The Hitlerian talk about a “new order,” like the Japanese variation on the same theme, seems to us to be so wholly divorced from the stark realities of the time that it is well-nigh inconceivable that anyone should be taken in by it. Yet we have to remember not only the fact that blockade conditions may make susceptible to the propaganda, minds that would normally reject it, but also that submission for months to Nazi rule may bring in its train a subtle habituation to that rule, and acceptance of its apparent inevitability. There are, therefore, strong reasons for indicating, at least in broad outline, what is the nature of the European (or even of the world) order that we should wish to see set up, and to which we should wish to contribute by effort and if necessary by sacrifice.