LISTENING TO THE GRAMOPHONE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 43, 19 April 1940, Page 10

LISTENING TO THE GRAMOPHONE

The Editor, "The Listener" Sir,-I am quite unable to agree with the sentiments expressed by you under this heading in The Listener of 15/3/40. You hold that when face to face with an enemy we must take great pains to conceal our own weaknesses. In a word you advocate something approaching blind reverence, temporarily at least. At no time and under no circumstances do I believe in blind reverence for something that exhibif® flaws, Moreover the more energetic we are in denouncing the vices of our enemy, the more grave becomes the danger of losing all consciousness of our own. Recently the Dean of Canterbury in an article entitled "Is this what we are fighting for?" revealed that one sixth of the total child population of Great Britain is (be it observed that all the blunders of Britain are not to be spoken of in the past tense) dangerously undernourished. Now, sir, this is one of those cankerous growths about which you bid us be silent. The Dean of Canterbury is not a victim of "perversion and disease," neither did he make this revelation for the edification of Dr. Goebbels. It is essentially for our own benefit, and to whatever purpose it is directed by our enemy it must have the effect of goading our own men into battle if this war be regarded in its true light, as a crusade. And in this connection here is the point to be stressed: this crusade is to be directed quite as much against the moles on our own faces as against those on Hitler’s. Yours, etc.,

JASON

Te Awamutu, March 18, 1940. (The Dean would have been better employed reading the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, However worthy his motive was, if the effect of his words was to encourage the enemy and discourage and divide his own people, he should have remained silent at this stage in the struggle.-Ed.)