Claim challenged

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 19

Claim challenged

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON, March 26. The former British Labour Party Cabinet Minister, Mr Richard Crossman. has challenged this week’s claim of the European Movement that the Commonwealth will benefit if Britain joins the Common Market Writing in today’s issue of the “New Statesman,” which he edits, Mr Crossman says that the movement’s claim, in large newspaper advertisements on Wednesday, was that the price of butter really did not matter. “It was unfortunate that, this very week, farmers were rioting in the streets of Brussels,” writes Mr Crossman. “And what were they rioting about? They were protesting that the differen-

tial between the £BOO a ton they were getting for butter and the £3OO paid to New Zealanders simply was not enough. “But it was the Movement’s questlon-and-answer advertisement that really threw me. “The first rule of propaganda, as I leamt it years ago, is that you never risk telling a transparent untruth. “Yet how else could anyone consider the European Movement’s blatant statement that the Commonwealth ‘will benefit from a closer relationship, not only with a strengthened Britain but with the whole Community?’ “Perhaps Lord Harlech (the leader of the movement) should try telling that to the New Zealanders.”