STIRRING APPEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 February 1942, Page 4

STIRRING APPEAL

BY NEW YORK COLUMNIST AMERICAN SHORTCOMINGS. WHAT BRITAIN STANDS FOR. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) NEW YORK, February 19. The “New York Post’s” noted columnist, Miss Dorothy Thompson, in a stirring article today, replies to critics of Britain over Singapore as follows:— “Yes, I read Cecil Brown and so did Goebbels —he is quoting him all over the place. Yes, I know the show in Singapore was not so good. Yes, I know they did not follow the scorched earth policy. You can't feel worse about it than I did. Just the same I can’t stand cackling. Who is calling whom names? We talked for a year and a half, with Mr Hamfish, with a German agent in his office—the America First Committee was riddled with Nazi agents —about whether this was our war. The British supported us in the Far East, not we the British. Do you remember Pearl Harbour? Were we so hot at Pearl Harbour? Have you heard the British say a word against the-- Americans? Did they crow over Pearl Harbour? Did they rush into print to talk about our smugness and complacency? You don’t know what England means. My friend, England is very tired and England is old. Yet, though it slay me, I will tell you this. England is the last refuge of civilised souls. In the hour of her greatest distress, her greatest disaster, I, an American, write these lines to England and I say to England, in spite of Singapore, I will sing with you, ‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free’ and I will sing with you, ‘There will always be an England and England will be free.”