VIGOROUS REBUKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1943, Page 4

VIGOROUS REBUKE

GIVEN TO BRITISH CRITIC OF UNITED STATES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. PLAIN SPEAKING BY MINISTER OF INFORMATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, April 13. After criticising, in the House of Commons, the publicity given to the British war effort in America, Captain A. S.- Cunningham-Reid, D.F.C. (Con.), drew a vigorous reply from the Minister of Information (Mr Brendan Bracken) who suggested that Captain Cun-ningham-Reid was unworthily attacking the United States and jeering at the American Press. Captain Cunningham-Reid said that over 50,000 British civilians had been killed as a result of air raids and nearly twice as many injured. Yet America, despite its greater population, was only now beginning to exceed the British output. “It is regrettable,” he said, “that Americans have a perverted view of the British achievement and aims after the war and also that the number of these overseas grumblers is fast increasing. Americans should be told that we are supplying them, under lease-lend, with nearly as much as we are receiving and also that we gained them time to put on some armour ansl recover from Pearl Harbour.” Captain CunninghamReid contended that a new and more ambitious form of United States isolationism aimed to absorb Canada, take Atlantic and Pacific bases from Britain, maintain a powerful Army and Air Force after the war and dominate world air transport and commerce. Mr Bracken recalled American correspondents who had truthfully told of the blitz period, during which Captain Cunningham-Reid was absent from Britain. “Captain CunninghamReid,” said the Minister, “has. done everything possible to create disunity in the United States. He has done everything Goebbels wants. His facts are mostly wrong. The British information services in New York have done a splendid job, which every sensible American newspaper man and broadcaster is approving. The fact that Captain Cunningham-Reid, in his mincing way, jeered at them is the best tribute that could come from him.” _