New Zealand Rumourmongers “Sink” Many Vessels In Pacific

Northern Advocate, 9 December 1940, Page 3

New Zealand Rumourmongers “Sink” Many Vessels In Pacific

[Per Press Association. Copyright .l WELLINGTON, This Day.

The'Director of Publicity vMr J. T. Paul) has issued the following statement on the question of rumours and related to shipping:— “Following the official announcement by the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) that the Holmwood was overdue, possibly a victim of the raider known to have been off the New Zealand coast about that time, many baseless rumours were circulated. “It might reasonably have been expected, when all the known facts were made available regarding this particular vessel, that there would have been less scope for the mischievous intervention of the rumour-monger than in certain other cases, where it was not in the public interest to publish the name of an overdue ship. Troublesome Pest. “That expectation has not been realised and this troublesome pest continues to exercise hfs peculiar habit. “Within a very few hours of the official announcement, it was rumoured that another ship had been lost in the same locality, that the wireless station at the Chathams was out of order, that the wireless on the ship had been officially sealed, and so on. Chathams Occupied! “These and other similar imaginings culminated with possibly the most fantastic, that the Chatham Islands had been occupied by a raider. This I was requested, by a long-distance telephone call at the witching hour of midnight, to confirm or deny. “The discovery of a royal road for the discouragement of rumours would be most helpful in our community. “During this week it has been rumoured that certain ships have been lost and that others are overdue, v but not in one case has the rumour been based on fact. Safe in Port.

“In one instance an urgent inquiry was telephoned from Auckland asking for information regarding an allegedly overdue ship. The vessel in question, for some time previously, had been safely berthed at a port. “Might I add that the policy followed is not to withhold any information regarding either good news or bad in connection with our activities in this war, except those cases where the dissemination of either would be helpful to the enemy. “In this connection it will readily bo appreciated that New Zealand, us a part of the British Commonwealth of Nations, must act m complete co-oper-ation with Britain. “This is a war in which the nations of the Commonwealth must stand or fall together.”