3 AUGUST 1944, Page 12

TELLING GERMANY

am glad and grateful for the assurances of Mr. Harman that our broadcast propaganda to Germans is ingenious and attractive. had no wish, indeed, to suggest the contrary. But I am anxious that Mr. Hayman's praise for the technique of our propaganda should no obscure the different and, I believe, more important issue which I tried to raise: the question of the gist, or general " line " of our propaganda to Germans. It is this which is wrapped in so much secrecy, and which is surely of so much general political importance. What every German listener must be most anxious to learn now is what treatment Germane may expect if they are defeated: whether or not the Atlantic Charts comes into the picture ; what standard of life and conditions of laboo the ordinary worker can expect if he helps to overthrow the Nazi regime after what further hardships and what period he may be considered to have " worked his passage home," into the benefits of any future into national order, and so on. These are difficult and somewhat incalculabk questions to answer. But I suggest that if our propaganda, however ingenious in method, is not by now beginning to provide some reasonabk answer to such questions; it is little likely to affect the course or outcome of the war. If it is attempting to answer these questions—what are the answers, and why should not British public opinion be acquainted will the answers, so that it can express some approval or disapproval of them? As Sir Edward Griggg remarks in his recent book on British Form Policy, "The worst of all would be to commit ourselves to peace terms with Germany which our people may later begin to consi