SPIRITED REPLY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 43, 20 February 1942, Page 5

SPIRITED REPLY

BRITAIN DEFENDED

American Writer Scarifies

Critics I'nitocl Press Association.—Ci>pyrig-ht. Rec. noon. NEW YORK, Feb. 19. The New York Post noted columnist, Dorothy Thompson, in a stirring article to-day, replies to critics of Britain over Singapore. "Yes, I read Cecil Brown and so did Goebbels. He's quoting him all over the place. \ es, I know the show in Singapore wasn't so good. Yes, I know they didn't follow the scorched earth policy. You can't feel worse about it than I did.

"Just the same I can't stand cackling. Who's calling whom names? Is this war in the Far East the fault of the British? We talked for a year and a half, with a German agent in his office, and the America First Committee, 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 sav a word against the Americans? "Did they crow over Pearl Harbour? Did they rush into print to talk about our smugness and complacency?

"\ou don't know what England means, my friend. England is very tired and England is old. yet though it slay me, I tell you mis England is the last refuge of the civilised soul.

'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 sing with you 'Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,' and I sing with you, 'There'll Always Be an England, and England Will be Free.'"