Fine Old English Gentlemen!

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 29, 30 December 1938, Unnumbered Page

Fine Old English Gentlemen!

Empire Sits Back While Totalitarian Radio ' Propaganda Floods The Worid _

T HERE is a sacred tradition in the English code that goes by the name of Fair Play.. It is a very fine tradition that has somehow been handed down from the days of jousting knights and tournaments to the public schools and on to the people themselves. — The code was spread abroad wherever Britons went-and they went nearly everywhere in the world-until it filtered all over the Empire. Others may fight with tooth and claw but the Englishman must fight under the Marquess of Queensberry rules. The code became a legend. The public’s heroes were all Brildog Drummonds-who hit clean and hit hard but never picked a man when he was wown But there is one flaw in the code. What does Bulldog Drummond do when the other man kicks him when he himself is down? Does he turn the other cheek? Scarcely. Bulldog Drummond kicks back. QO-DAY the code of Fair Play . is still strong in the mind of the Empire. It rules in games and as far as possible in war. Reeent publication of Lord Wsher’s diary reveals that British soldiers occupying German territory after the war lost morale because they disliked seeing hunger among the conquered people. And, chiefly, it rules in radio. The many radio voices of the Empire, from the BBC in England to the NBS in New Zealand, are polite, reserved and restrained. THEY MAKE YOU THINK OF THE PHRASE, ‘‘FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMEN,’’ They present faets in the firm faith that truth will prevail. No doubt this is a good and proper faith. But before truth prevails there may be much w'sery and much suffering

HERE has already been that in Arabia. For months German and Italian propaganda has been poured into Arabia. For months the Empire disregarded it; replied at last with broadeasis in Arabie of their own, They were polite, reserved and restrained. They filled eyery condition of the Marquess of Queensberry rules. They were based on the hope that truth would prevail. But the ‘‘Reeord"’ firmly believes that it is time Bulldog

Drummond kicked back. It is high time that Britain met the dictators with their own weapons. The Dominions should urge on Britain without delay the _ heed for setting up an Office of Propaganda to combat the new danger in the air. Britain should have a Ministry of Propaganda that would be Empire-wide in its scope. It should be formed from the best advertising and editorial brains in the Empire.

it should have the advice of specialists who have lived on the spot and know the minds of the Indians, the Boers, the West Indian negroes, the Maltese and the Arabs intimately. Britain had such an organisation in the last war. And the irony of the position to-day is that the powerful propaganda under Lord Northcliffe towards the end of 1918 supplied the (Turn to Page 2.)

Fine Old Enalish Gentlemen!--- cont. from Page 1.

rudimentary rules for the Nazi scheme to-day. The full story of Fascist propaganda has yet to be_told in New Zealand. And in the centre of its far-flung web is elub-footed, dwarf-like Reich Minister for Publie Enlightenment and Propaganda, Paul Josef Goebbels, the greatest publicist of all time. Through Paul Goebbels, Gormany’s current expenditure on propaganda is a. sixth of her entire rearmament budget. ‘The radio voices of Germany are heard all over the world. This German shortwave scrvice has a threefold aim. | To reach colonies and settiements of overseas Germans and make them conscious of Nazi greatness. To ereate Gérman markets in competition with other exportine countries. Eo eonvinee the rest of the world of German greatness and the justice of German aspira,tions.. Brotherly Love. LL this is being. done in six languages and more, It is done with German thorough‘ness and efficiency. German Americans in U.S.A. are showered with brotherly yove from home. — South Africans are educated

im Afrikaans’ to: understand German colonial claims. ° The South» Americans are -taught on shortwave in Spanish arid Portuguese to appreeiate German music, and incidentally, German machines. Nobody Forgotten NOBODY is forgotten, Even . outin the Antipodes we hear the yoice of Germany, soft, melliffious and ‘fruity_€specially fruity. There is the broadeast .to Tasmania that begins ‘‘THullo, Tasmania, beautiful Appie Isle.’’ We hear listencrs in Austraiia and New Zealand greeted

by name in the friendliest manner by announcers im Berlin. ACTS have proved Germany’s assistance in the Arab revolt in Palestine and her exploitation of Pan-Islamism and anti-Zionism. Two years ego Jerusalem police intereepted documents proving that Arab leaders reeeived £50,000 from Germany and £20, 000 from Italy’ to strengthen resistanee. The swastika has now appeared in Arab leaflets; German rifles have been captured from Arab _ terrorists. The Arab Club in Damascus is known ‘to

be maintained from German sourees and there is an Arab Olub, openly advertised, in fhe centre of Berlin. Tt was the anti-British broadeasts in Arabie that caused the Foreign Office to arrange Bri: tish broadeasts in native tongues some months ago. "All these and many more are strands in the web of "Paul Josef. Goebbel’s weav-. ing’. . é soe The cost-a sixth of Germany’s eurrent armament ex-penditure-has heen more than justified. ,

Italy, pupil to German Fascism, Is not far behind its big brother. tome shortwave transmissions send out a steady stream of Fascist propaganda, mostly in ihe guise of news, history lessons and veports of the march of Ttalian civilisation in Sonth Africa. ltaly’s Part | PIMENSITY of their plans is: clear from the fact that in 1937 the Italian short-wave station was br oadeasting regularly in Italian, Enylish, Spanish, Portuguese, . Arabie, | Chinese and . At the endef 1937 talks mm Arabic had already become part of the daily. programmes

of stations at Rome and Berlin. To-day news is given from Italian stations in Serbian, Greek, Turkish, Romanian and Albanian as well, But in the Empire’s immense programme of rearmament and defence practically nothing is being done to counter the most potent weapon in the armoury of the totalitarian States. ~Is it any ‘wonder Britain feels itself politically menaced in the Mediterranean, in India, ‘in the Near and Far East? | IT IS VERY .NICE TO BE KNOWN AS FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMEN-AS LONG AS IT IS NOT THE INSCRIPTION ON YOUR TOMBSTONES.