FLAT DENIAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1944, Page 4

FLAT DENIAL

OF AMERICAN ANTI-TRUST CHARGES MADE BY LORD McGOWAN. ON BEHALF OF IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) LONDON, January 7. Lord McGowan, president of the Imperial Chemical Industries, has issued an additional statement or. the American anti-trust suit. Lord McGowan said that since he had made the statement cabled yesterday, his attention had been drawn to statements made by the United States Assistant Attorney-General, Mr Wendell Berge. “While I have not yet a complete report,” Lord McGowan observed, “Mr Berge clearly states that in his view the activities of Imperial Chemical Industrie sand du Pont 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 the war, was of any other character than designed to assist both the British and Allied governments by every means in our power. We lent freely our ablest colleagues, staff and workers, including thousands of key men, to all Government departments and factories who asked for them. We placed our research patents and processes and our knowledge, technical and commercial, for the purposes of the 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, supply departments, and other Ministers and their department. I wish, therefore, on behalf of myself. Lord Melchett (deputy vice-chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries), my collcages, and the 120,000 men and women working in our factories, and the 15,090 of our employees serving in the armed forces, to issue a flat denial of these iniquitous charges, and make it clear that we are prepared to meet them, fully and in detail, at the proper time and place.”