ANZAC TROOPS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25053, 17 November 1944, Page 3

ANZAC TROOPS

"A BLACKOUT OF NEWS" COMMENT IN CANADA An editorial article from the Family Herald and Weekly Star, a journal described as Canada's national farm magazine. Recently we asked a well-informed friend, "Did you hear about Australia?" "What about Australia," he countered, in surprise. "Anything about Australia," we insisted. And the inevitable answer was simply "No." For something seems to have gone wrong with that well-known metaphor about the world having shrunk so much that we are all next door neighbours. Either the famed international communication system has gone out of business or Australia has been cut off the line! When did you' last hear anything about those magnificient Anzac troops who have been fighting in the deadly jungles of the East Indies? When did you last see a newsreel picture of the Anzacs in action? When did you last hear a stirring radio address from an Australian or about Australia or New Zealand? When did you last read a vivid news story by a war correspondent with the Anzac forces? The questions answer themselves. It is as if there were a news biack-out oyer the Anzacs! It isn't the communication systems that have broken down, because we hear and see plenty about the Americans fighting the same enemy in tho same places—even though the German war inevitably overshadows the Japanese one at this time. Something is wrong somewhere,—-and whatever it is, it is doing harm to Canadians and Australians alike. For we should both know more about each other. We have stuck together for a long time, and ws ©xpocfc to stick together another long time to come. Ignorance is no foundation for confidence or brotherhood and Canadian-Austra-lian mutual ignorance should be corrected as soon as possible. Some of our big Canadian press services should get busy and put into tho Eastern war the kind of first class correspondents that those first-class liglitiu'- Anzacs deserve. If it is beyond the means of the press services or the bigger daily newspapers, then the Canadian War Information Board should get busy on the ]ob. if Australia or New Zealand has any sort of information service, it would be worth while for the Anzacs to brush a few cobwebs off it. .v Unless memory plays us false the Anzacs of 1914-1918 were adepts at brushing cobwebs off pretty nearly anvthing! Nor did they hesitate too diffidently.and long in mentioning that the Anzacs could occasionally show a certain modest competency in matters military! . We would like to hear and read, right now, what we know by instinct and experience—that the Anzacs in the East are doing a better job there, man for man, than anybody else within a thousand miles.