“INIQUITOUS CHARGES”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 January 1944, Page 5

“INIQUITOUS CHARGES”

ANTI TRUST COMPLAINT London, Jan. 8. Lord McGowan, president of the Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., has issued an additional statement on the American anti-trust suit. Lord McGowan said that since making the statement cabled yesterday his attention had been drawn to statements made by the United States Assistant Attorney-General, Mr Wendell Berge. “While I haven’t yet received a complete report,” he said, “Mr Berge clearly states that in his view the activities of Imperial Chemical Industries and du Pont de Nemours and Company had frustrated the Allied war effort and involved collaboration with the enemy. I cannot wait to obtain more exact information before denying utterly and totally any suggestion that any action of ours during the war, and, indeed, before thfe war, was of any other character than designed to assist both the British and the Allied Governments by every means in our power. “We have lent freely our ablest colleagues—staff and workers, including thousands of key men—to all Government Departments and factories which asked for them. We have placed our research, patents, and processes, and all our knowledge, technical and commercial, for the purposes of war unreservedly at the disposal of the Government, and through them to America and Russia. Our war effort has been freely recognised and appreciated by the Ministries of all three Services, the Supply Departments, and other ministers and their Departments. I wish, therefore, on behalf of myself and Lord Melchett, and my colleagues, and the 120,000 men and women working in our war factories, and the 15,000 of our employees who are serving in the Armed Forces, to issue a flat denial of these iniquitous charges and to make it clear that we are prepared to meet them fully in detail at the proper time and place.”