HC Deb 13 April 1943 vol 388 cc1175-82

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir J. Edmondson.]

Captain Cunningham-Reid (St. Marylebone)

We have failed to bring home to the Americans the part we have played and are playing in this war. The majority in the U.S.A. do not appreciate that during three-and-a-half years, except for the first few months of "phoney" war, we have been engaging the enemy on one front or another all the time. Sometimes we have been occupied with many fronts at the same time, and sometimes we have had to fight alone. Every year the number and scope of our operations have grown, and all the time this island has been the immediate or potential object of the enemy's most ruthless aerial attention. During all this time we have provided the greater part of the fighting men and the bulk of the munitions and other material. We have built and manned most of the ships, and we have kept the oceans clear for their sailing. When there has been a loss of ships or of sailors or of cargoes, it is this nation that has suffered most of the consequences.

Simultaneously our people in these Islands have borne the brunt of the enemy's assaults on civilians, the burden of which is reflected in a toll of something over 50,000 killed and nearly twice that number more or less seriously maimed. But for the fact that we went to it and produced the necessary fighting defence in the form of Spitfires, Hurricanes, and such like, the toll would have been even heavier. The undeniable fact remains that in the dark days of 1940 we alone stood resolutely athwart the aggressor's road to world dominion, and by that stand we rendered possible the mobilisation of the United States of America, in whose operations we have since played no inconsiderable part.

A fact that is too little known is that only now has American output, although America has a population of 130,000,000, begun to exceed that of our population of 46,000,000. We have kept the pace in these Islands, despite enemy attentions, and, moreover, we have done it on a minimum diet. I only hope that Americans will be doing likewise when they have had three years of austerity—that is to say if Germany and Japan last as long as that—when they, the Americans, are up against the havoc of war and are on short rations.

In the meantime it is very regrettable that so many Americans have a perverted view of British achievements and British aims, in respect of both the war and the post-war period. It is also regrettable that the number of these overseas' grumblers is fast increasing. It is not enough for us in this country to dismiss some of these people across the Atlantic as "mere cranks," and anyhow it is hardly a compliment for us to tell the American people that at recent elections they have elected quite a number of cranks to control their affairs. I would remind the House of one or two of the statements of some of these newly-elected Senators, and I think the one that is best known, possibly, is the glamorous Senator Mrs. Claire Luce.

The Minister of Information (Mr. Brendan Bracken)

I beg the hon. and gallant Member's pardon, but before he poses as an authority on America he must realise that Mrs. Claire Luce is not a Senator. She was elected to Congress.

Captain Cunningham-Reid

I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman but anyhow I think I am correct in saying that she was elected not so very long ago in the recent American elections. She is a member of Congress. It was she who declared that the sky was the limit of American claims on the world, and she wants Washington to dominate all nations in post-war aviation, and I think she can hardly be unmindful of the fact that Britain constitutes no inconsiderable part of the "all."

I have no more time for Luce talk, but I want to say one or two words about statements of other Senators and other Congress members which have received publicity in the U.S.A. Take, for example, the case of Senator Tydings. I think in this case I am right in referring to him as "Senator." He thinks that we should give the United States final title to the leased West Indian bases out of gratitude for Lend-Lease. Representative Magnuson, with even less modesty, wants to convert the Pacific into an ail-American ocean, including the British islands in that ocean, which besides our West Indian possessions are to be handed over, according to him, in return for American assistance to us. I have noted on these occasions that when these statements have been made they have received very wide publicity in the American Press. These particular representatives did not say one word about our assistance to America, which is unknown, to a very large extent, to the average American.

How about our telling the Americans bluntly and often that we are now lend-leasing to the Allies as much as we receive? I know that that statement was made only yesterday, but the trouble is that such statements, while getting a considerable amount of publicity in this country, will get very little publicity in the U.S.A. I would suggest that our propaganda machine in America should not dwell so much on the fact that we are lend-leasing to our Allies as much as America is lend-leasing to us, but on the fact, which will interest the Americans a good deal more, that we are to-day lend-leasing to the American people very nearly as much as they are lend-leasing to us. We equipped and supplied their Expeditionary Force to North Africa. The cost of making and equipping the land bases we have provided in this country for their Forces, and that includes the air Forces, is somewhere in the region, as we heard yesterday, of £150,000,000. Over and above this, we continue to supply a large proportion of the present-day needs of the American Forces in the African sphere of operations. India, Africa and Australia make extensive contributions in other spheres, and in the matter of technical designs we have given as much as we have received.

I think it is also time that we reminded them of the experience, valuable though often bitter, that we have gained, and passed on to them without the bitterness. Above all is the time we have gained for them to put some armour on and recover from Pearl Harbour. Last but not least they would to-day undoubtedly be dominated by Germany, if it were not for a little incident that is known as the Battle of Britain. I have several contacts with that great country. I have been in touch with several Britishers and Americans who have recently come to this country. The House will probably be astonished when I say that there is a very large section of the community in America who give us very little credit for the Battle of Britain.

It was the eminent head of the American National Association of Manufacturers who said that Americans were not going to fight to give a pint of milk to the Hottentots, and went on to say that he hoped that the Americans would rush straight home when this show was over, leaving Europe to the Europeans. And it is none other than the "Wall Street Journal," a journal with which no doubt the Minister of Information is conversant, which assails the Atlantic Charter, accuses us of wanting to run the whole world, and then takes consolation in the thought that Britain's day is done. Such sentiments, fostered in many influential places in the United States of America, may be built up to dangerous proportions when the burden of the war hits Americans to the same degree as it has hit us. I am not for one moment suggesting that the American capacity to take it is any less than ours, but, unlike Britain, the United States has a chorus of discordant anti-Allied voices which we should do our best to still.

The Foreign Secretary, who has just returned from the U.S.A., himself said only the other day in the House that there are Americans who do not like us very much. This is all the more reason, and makes it all the more necessary, for a constant statement in the United States of our attributes and of our war and peace aims, and an equally constant reminder of the aims of the American critics. I think that is a matter which should be stressed, because their desire is to sell America a new and more ambitious form of isolationism. Their vision goes no further than political expediency. Their programme, which I presume is already well known to this House, well known as it is to practically everyone in America, is first of all the absorption of Canada, then permanent bases in the Atlantic and Pacific to be taken over from us, and a powerful standing Army and Air Force after the war, compulsorily enrolled. Observe, there is no question of disarmament and an international force for policing the world. Their programme also includes the domination of the world's air and a monopoly of world commerce. That is all they want.

Denouncing the aspirations of Vice-President Wallace, they advance concrete claims, calculated to appeal to large sections of American voters, people susceptible to their propaganda because we have neglected to acquaint them sufficiently with the facts. It seems to me that acquainting them with the facts is of necessity a job for first-rate British journalists, and from the information I can gather, most of the propagandists we send to America are not qualified for that work. They have not had the experience. Why must Americans eat horse flesh whilst American beef is sent to England? That was only the other day asked by the Berlin radio, but, strangely enough, this trouble-stirring question was not a Goebbels brain-wave at all. It was a repetition of statements made by uninformed Congressmen in the United States of America.

Mr. Bracken

Would the hon. and gallant Member please give way?

Captain Cunningham-Reid

One moment please; I am coming to a conclusion.

Mr. Bracken

Would he also remember that I have to give an answer?

Captain Cunningham-Reid

I am just coming to a conclusion. I am quite convinced that if we had had first-class British journalists in control of the propaganda service over there, they would very soon have put it over the radio and in the Press that very little beef comes across the Atlantic from the United States, and what does come over here is for the use of the American personnel on this side. There are several other unfortunate questions that are being put out, first in America, and then taken up by Goebbels, but, as time is getting on, I will not go into them.

For our Ambassador in the United States to complain at this late date that the Americans have got us wrong—to use his own words—reflects very little credit on our past efforts to make them get us right. But it is very definitely a feather in the cap of Germany's propaganda chief. In recent months Goebbels's department has been working overtime, and fitting the theme to the same old purpose. He is naturally bent on wrecking the unity between us and our Allies, and he makes no attempt to conceal his desire.

Sir Patrick Hannon (Birmingham, Moseley)

On a point of Order. Is not this an abuse of the Adjournment Motion? There is an understanding that when a Member gets the Adjournment he will afford ample time for the Minister to reply.

Mr. Speaker

That is a matter over which I have no power.

Captain Cunningham-Reid

It is the hon. Gentleman who is taking up time. I would point out that the Adjournment is Private Members' time, and that a certain amount of it to-day was taken up by Government Business. I have been waiting for an opportunity to raise such matters for four weeks. The Minister, if he cares to make a longer reply than he can make in five minutes or so, has many opportunities of doing it in the future. I want to conclude by saying that Goebbels at the moment appears more sure of himself than we should be giving him reason to be, and recently he told the Germans, no doubt by way of consolation for the devastating tendencies of the R.A.F., that they had only to hang on a while and their troubles would disappear, as a result of the division between the British Empire and the U.S.A. I am anxiously watching this world championship contest of Goebbels versus Bracken.

The Minister of Information (Mr. Brendan Bracken)

The hon. and gallant Member may well be watching the competition between Goebbels and Bracken. He has, however, taken the fullest opportunity of the short time given to the point that he wanted to make on the Adjournment. He has left me five minutes in which to speak.

Captain Cunningham-Reid

I explained why.

Mr. Bracken

His explanation was typical of him. It is an extraordinary procedure. A Member of Parliament comes here to-day with a series of carefully-distilled insults to the United States of America, and he boasts of his contacts in the United States. I can tell the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I have better contacts, but they are not among the fashionables. The hon. and gallant Gentleman comes here with a lot of gossip, and incidentally he says that the British story has not been told to the United States. Does he forget the American correspondents in London, and the tale they told in the blitz? I think he does, because he was out of the country when the American correspondents were seeing the Battle of Britain through.

Captain Cunningham-Reid

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be fair, and to say that I was sent over at the request of a Government Department.

Mr. Bracken

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has made that explanation before. It is an absurd explanation. He comes here and says that there is a contest between Bracken and Goebbels. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has used rough language. I saw the American correspondents of London and various other people who told our story to America, when the hon. and gallant Gentleman was beach-combing in Honolulu during the great Battle of Britain. I decline for a second to deal with his unworthy attacks on the U.S.A., his jeers at the American Press, his quotations of a few of the known enemies of Great Britain and the U.S. But he has done everything in his power to do exactly what Goebbels wants—namely, to spread disunity in the United Nations. Never have I seen such a spectacle in the House of Commons. I do not know who helped the hon. and gallant Gentleman to compose the bulky collection of jeers and insults which he has carefully mouthed. He gave most of his facts wrong. He did not come here to give any sort of intelligent criticism to the House of our British Information Services.

I can tell the hon. and gallant Gentleman something which is unknown to him. The members of the British Information Services in the U.S. are not people who hand out crude propaganda to the American Press, because no sensible American newspaper will ever touch this propaganda dope. Mr. Raymond Gram Swing, who is a greater authority than the hon. and gallant Gentleman can ever hope to be, said that British propaganda in America is "just right." I think people who know him, and the House generally, will prefer his opinion to that of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The hon. and gallant Gentleman comes to this House from time to time and indulges in criticism of various British officials, and now he has fixed upon mine. I tell him that the British Information Services in New York have done a splendid job of work for Great Britain. They have shown the greatest possible devotion to duty. They are, I think, approved of by every sensible American newspaper man or broadcaster. They have also been useful to the cinema industry in the United States, which is the third great arm of propaganda. I must say, as I am working completely against the clock, that if I were to talk to our faithful servants in New York, Chicago and elsewhere and said that they were praised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has made this slimy, jeering speech against the United States, they would be very much incommoded. The fact that he has taken this opportunity of jeering at them is the best possible tribute to them that could come from his mouth.

Captain Cunningham-Reid

Is it not a fact that this ostrich-like tendency which has been observed in the Minister's reply is typical of what is going on in the U.S.A. in our propaganda services and is the reason why the Americans have got us wrong?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is now making another speech.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.