Publicising Britain
At last there appears to be mote willingness in official messages and in Press reports to give their due to British Forces engaged on active service instead of singling out for exclusive praise the part taken by Imperial or foreign units of the United Nations. During three years of war the desire to compliment our friends and to be reticent about our own achievements has done a serious disservice to the country, and has tended to create abroad an utterly false impression of our achievements in the war. Mr. Lyttelton happily has appreciated this weakness in our propaganda—which, it cannot be too strongly said, does not win any approval from our friends in America, who think it is merely foolish of us to be so hesitant to state our own case. In his broadcast to the United States last week Mr. Lyttelton very wisely took the opportunity to state a few facts which Americans ought to know—such as that in the first quarter of this year the Army munitions output in Britain was two and a quarter times that of the United States ; and that even in the second quarter in proportion to our population we were producing twice the weight of combat aircraft and one and a half times as much Army munitions. The facts about our munitions output, and still more the facts about our fighting men must be proclaimed by ourselves to a world which otherwise will not know them. Who, judging by our official communiqués, our Press reports, and our propaganda services, would know that 70 per cent. of the total casualties suffered by the British Commonwealth have been sustained by British, as distinct from Dominion, troops? The fact that self-glorification is repugnant need not drive us to self-effacement.
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