BRITAIN DEFENDED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22203, 21 February 1942, Page 5

BRITAIN DEFENDED

Reply To Singapore Critics NEW YORK. February 19. The noted columnist of the "New York Post,” Miss Dorothy Thompson, in a stirring article today, replies to critics of Britain over Singapore. Miss Thompson said: “Yes; I road Cecil Brown and so did Goebbels. He is quoting him all over “the place. Yes; I know the show in Singapore was not so good. Yes a I know they did not follow • the scorched earth policy. You cannot fee, worse about it than I did. Just the same, I cannot stand ’cackling.' Who is calling whom names? We talked a year and a half—Hamilton Fish with a German agent in his office, and the America First Committee riddled with Nazi agents—about whether this was our war.” “The British supported us in the Far East, not we the British.” continued Miss Thompson. “You remember Pearl Harbour? Have you heard the British say a word against the Americans? Did they crow over Pearl Harbour? Did they rush Into print to talk about our smugness and complacency? You do not know what England means, my friend. England is very tired, and England is old. Yet though it slay me, 1 tell you this— England is the last refuge of civilised souls. In the hour of her greatest disaster I, an American, write these lines to England, and I say to England, in spite of Singapore, I sing with you ‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,’ and I sing with you ‘There’ll Always be an England, and England will be Free,”