MR AMERY CRITICISED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25358, 16 October 1943, Page 5

MR AMERY CRITICISED

ATTITUDE TO BENGAL FAMINE? EXTENT OF RELIEF SUPPLIES (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) CALCUTTA, Oct. 14. " If the Secretary of State for India, Mr L. S. Amery, aid a good job occasionally, instead of making inane speeches, he would really prove himself useful.” This comment on Mr Amery’s statement in the House of Commons on the Bengal food situation is made by the Moslem daily newspaper, the Morning News. It suggests that Mr Amery should arrange for the loan of Italian merchant shipping which has come under Allied control. Other newspapers are also severely critical of Mr Amery’s statement. The British-owned newspaper, the Calcutta Statesman, says: “ Thoughtful observers find themselves sadly out of tune, both factually and emotionally, with Mr Amery’s speech, except his criticism of the mistakes of previous Bengal Ministries.” The Hindustan Standard says that the Bengal death roll is mounting, and Mr Amery’s invisible help is matched only by the invisible stocks of rice in Bengal., In his statement on the food position in India, especially Bengal, made in the House of Commons a few days ago, Mr Amery said that at the beginning of the year the British Government provided the necessary shipping for substantial imports of grain to India to meet the prospects of a serious shortage, which was subsequently relieved by the excellent spring harvest in northern India. “Since the recrudescence of the shortage in acute form we have made every effort to provide shipping, and considerable quantities of food grains are now .arriving, or are due to arrive before the end of the year,” he said. “We have also been able to help in the supply of milk food for children. The problem as far as help from here is concerned is entirely one of shipping, and it has been judged in the light of all the other urgent needs of the United Nations.”