REPLY TO U.S. SENATORS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21385, 21 April 1944, Page 2

REPLY TO U.S. SENATORS

It is good that a most effective reply to United States senators who too often Criticise the war efforts of their country’s allies should have come from so responsible a newspaper as the Washington Post. The Post, besides drawing the attention of the fault-finding section of the Senate to the outstanding fighting record of New Zealand and Australia, ottered general advice in the following terms: “It would be a sound rule of conduct for Americans to think the best rather than the worst of the partners whose war record has set us so shining an example.’” In point of fact, this kind of tribute is typical of what appears in the soundest American papers and is very much in line with the generous comment frequently made by high officers of the United States armed forces —men in close touch with the British war operations in many parts of the world. Britain and the dominions do not expect to be continually praised for doing what they consider to be their duty in these days of turmoil and strife, but they certainly smart under a sense of injustice when some of the politicians of their allies see fit to ventilate complaints when none is called for. The brighter side to the anti-British statements made both in Senate and Congress lies in the fact that they have elicited so much corrective information from the best-informed American newspapers. The New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, among others, have always been scrupulously fair in their assessments of the weight being thrown into the war effort by America’s allies. Even in the case of the critical senators and congressmen, most of them Republicans, the driving force may be purely political and born of a desire to harass an administration which for the whole period of the war has worked harmoniously with the countries of the British Empire and has sought at every opportunity to tighten the bonds of friendship uniting the Allies. The looming election is likely to have given added impetus to the campaign of criticism. Nevertheless, an end should be put to it all. The closer the amity between the United Nations at this vital stage of the war the sooner final and complete victory will be won and the more readily will a firm and enduring peace be established. 1