THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1927 PRESS MISLEADERS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 203, 11 August 1927, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1927 PRESS MISLEADERS.

rrVHERE can be little doubt but that the manner in which a section—and a fairly big section- -of the American Press has dealt with the proceedings at the Geneva Conference on naval limitation has done an inestimable amount of harm This is pointed out by a Boston paper —admittedly one that has invariab'y shown strong sympathy with Great Britain and done all possible to promote good feeling between her people and those of its own country. In dealing with the subject it says: “Many careful readers of the American Associated Press reports of the Conference have deplored a certain undercurrent of anti-British sentiment which too often appears. When, as frequently happens, the local telegraph editors seize upon this phase of the stories and emphasize it in their headlines, the impression 's given that the British delegates are endeavouring by intrigue or chicane to secure some special advantage over the United States.” As a “glaring instance” of this mistaken journalistic policy the following is quoted from a Geneva dispatch: “If a faithful account of the Geneva negotiations is ever written, the observers expect it will reveal to the world that a great Anglo-American tragedy has been enacted. The thread of the play, judging from reliable accounts, is that Great Britain, which has held the mastery of the seas for centuries, intends to maintain this mastery and can see neither the justice nor the wisdom of a youthful nation across the seas, the United States, wishing to lay down fleets equalling those of Great Britain. Great Britain contends that a high cruiser strength is essential and vital to the needs of her country, especially to give assurance that Great Britain shall not starve because of the cutting off of her food supplies at distant points.” Reporting of this sort—which technically is not reporting, but rather editorial writing—says the “Christian Science Monitor,” affords an illustration of the type of international correspondence against which repeated protests have been

made. It is apparently deliberately designed to arouse suspicion of and antagonism toward Great Britain in the thoughts of American readers. If not purposely misleading, it is at least carelessly so. For while it truthfully reports that Great Britain feels that “a high cruiser strength is essential and vital to the needs of her country,” it fails to mention the fact that the British delegates conceded to the United States the right to maintain a cruiser fleet of exact parity with that of Great Britain “Unless international conferences shall be characterised by belief M n the part of the participants in the good faith of their associates, they might better not be held,” the Boston paper concludes. “Certainly, should either Hugh Gibson or Lord Cecil publicly predict an ‘AngloAmerican tragedy' as the inevitable outcome of the Geneva Conference, he would be recalled in disgrace. Would it not he well for eminent international correspondents to maintain something of the guard over their pens that diplomatists do over their tongues?”