IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23444, 26 September 1941, Page 6

IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA

Mr Fraser’s Address ANNIVERSARY OF NEW MOVEMENT (P.A.) WELLINGTON, September 25. Impressions of the first anniversary of the establishment of the New Zealand section of the British-American Co-operation Movement was celebrated in Wellington to-day by a luncheon attended by representatives of the two countries, at which the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser), patron of the New Zealand section, gave an address on his recent tour abroad. The Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes were displayed behind the main table and also the banner of the movement. "A* few days before leaving London for America and Canada,” said Mr Fraser, “I visited the Loijgon headquarters of the Red Cross Society and Order of St. John, One of my duties was to inspect a long row of ambulances sent by the people of the United States to help the people of London and surrounding districts. Those ambulances were a practical embodiment of the goodwill pouring in an everwidening, ever-deepening stream across the Atlantic to the shores of Great Britain. ’ His first contact with the representatives of the United States had been in the Middle East Command, where he had been introduced to the United States military mission and had met Captain James Roosevelt, then at Lagos. He had met Mr W. Averell Harriman travelling on a mission from Mr Churchill to inquire into very difficult transport problems m ■ the East. His next experience had been in the War Cabinet room, where Mr Churchill had ushered in and introduced Mr Harry Hopkins. A visiting Prime Minister sat opposite the British Prime Minister, said Mr Fraser. He and Mr Hopkins had shared that position. Never before in the history of the British Cabinet had : a citizen of, another country been ushered-in to take part in the closest Cabinet deliberations. "Striking Event” "To me,” added Mr'* Fraser, “that was a most striking historical event.” Mr Fraser referred later to his meeting with Mr Hopkins in the White House at Washington, also with such notable American figures as Mr Cordell Hull, Mr Sumner Welles, and Colonel Frank Knox. “I met a great man, a very great man, in White House,” said Mr Fraser, referring to his meeting with Mr Roosevelt. "Mr Roosevelt has stood up for a domestic policy he believes in and has seen it extended to a world policy of freedom for the world from want and fear. In the face of opposition, Mr Roosevelt carried on his policy in the United States and then earned it into the councils of the world and made it a Magna Charta for mankind.” The President’s knowledge of the problems of the Pacific was surprising. He knew the production and scope of production of New Zealand and what its wheat crop was. He knew about Australia and its problems. He was a man who knew and had a sympathetic understanding of the problems of the Pacific, also Latin America. 4 Influence of Press Mr Fraser referred to the influence of the American press on public opinion in the matter of aid to Great Britain. He said that among the American journalists he had met were Dorothy Thompson and Raymond Gram Swing. The great bulk of American journalists he had met were men and women who had travelled all over the world. One man had been expelled from Rome; some had been in Moscow for years, and some in Germany. In every capital in Europe, they had never been afraid to speak out the truth as they saw it. “I formed a very high opinion of the best papers in the United States,” added Mr Fraser, “because men wrote and were permitted to write their heartfelt convictions and they are just as keen as any British people could be to help toward victory. The people in the interior of America, far from the Atlantic, and Pacific seaboards, could be excused for feeling secure in the heart of the continent, and wanting to be left alone, and isolationist newspapers played on that stolid mass of opinion. In those circumstances, it could be seen what a marvellous job America' and the Government of America was doing in the face of great difficulties. Never had a nation offered its all to another nation, not knowing when there would be repayment or whether in the dim future that repayment would be anything more than the knowledge that the world had been saved from tyranny.” '