ANTI-WAR RACKET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 135, 19 March 1940, Page 8

ANTI-WAR RACKET.

STICKERS ON CARGO. <fi MR FRASER’S STATEMENT. (Per Press Association). HAMILTON, March 18. •The discovery of stickers hearing anti-war. inscriptions on dairy produce loaded'on an overseas ship at Auckland was commenten upon by the DeputyPrime Minister, tho Hon. P. Fraser, in an address at a recruiting meeting in tho Bledisloe Hall. Amid applause, he stated that the time had come when tho Government must put a stop to that sort of thing. “Attempts aro being made to disturb the unity of the people of this country,” Mr Fraser said. “I do not want to speak in anything like a threatening or an exaggerated way, for I believe these people are very few, hut those misguided workers who placed the stickers on to dairy protegee crates are doing, tho greatest wrong to this country.” By moans of. those stickers a message might he received by dock workers in Liverpool and London that misrepresented New Zealand and its people, for very few believe tho utter rubbish that was printed upon them. The time had come when tho Government, in the name of the people, must put a stop to that sort of thing. It was not freedom of speech or even freedom of controversy. It was a deliberate attack "upon the country, a deliberate misrepresentation of the people and spirit of the Dominion, and an apparent effort to hinde rthe war organisation and purposes of tho people. Mr Fraser referred to the type of propaganda commonly used, and observed that one of the most amazing things to attempt to justify was the attack upon Finland. Ho added that people who listened to the Moscow radio accepted everything that was said and acted upon it in this country, were acting not as New Zealand citizens, but as representatives, protagonists and agents of a foreign country., And that would have to he considered.