Cairns Post (Qld. : 1909 - 1954), Monday 1 December 1941, page 1


AXIS PROPAGANDA.

AUSTRALIANS AT SINGA-

PORE.

HELP TO COUNTER.

SINGAPORE. November 29.

The Empire is preparing verbal punches in 22 languages to counter Axis propaganda in the Fax East, and Australians are helping to pack the punches.

The Malayan Broadcasting Commis-

sion will call the world very soon over one of the most powerful stations in the Empire, and it will help to blast the Axis cobwebs out of the furthest cor-

ners of Asia.

"We want Australians to realise that they are associated in this work just as their sons are helping to man the Malayan ramparts," a high official of the commission said yesterday.

The commission does not intend to conduct merely a propaganda war, al-though it has already nailed ugly Axis lies broadcast by Japanese short-wave stations, including slanders about the A.I.F. It plans to back up British home truths by a personal appeal to all creeds and colours, and by a cul-tural stimulus, which has been sadly neglected hitherto in Malaya.

Plans are in train for a special A.I.F. Christmas broadcast to the folks at

home.

Other regular broadcasts to Australia will be designed to give relatives and friends of Australian service men close-ups of what their menfolk are seeing here, and how they are living, and how they are making friends.

Among Australians working directly or indirectly for the commission are Peggy Broadhead (a young Melbourne woman, who will seek a radio close-up of the natives among whom the A.I.F. is encamped), Rex Warren (a former Melbourne journalist), and Rohan Rivett (of Melbourne).

Because European cultural activities are very limited and sectionalised in Singapore, the commission is bringing 11 musicians from England to form the nucleus of Singapore's first permanent

orchestra.

There are only 20,000 radio receivers in Malaya at present, but sales are in-creasing, and public loud speakers are being introduced in plantations and

villages.