A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46

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LG.
Home Intelligence Division .
Ministry of Information .
APPENDIX
HOME MORALE AND PUBLIC OPINION .
SECRET .

A review of three months' findings, November 1941 - January 1942.

Note : This paper should be read as a sequel to a longer review on this subject, issued as an appendix to the Home Intelligence Weekly Report on October 1, 1941.

1. Introduction .

In interpreting the present state of public feeling, certain general points mentioned in the previous review should be born in mind:-

a. For the majority of the public, personal experience is the most important factor in forming opinion. It is the immediate impact of the war on their own lives which affects them most strongly. Events happening at a distance have for them a certain unreality. And the greater the distance, the greater the unreality.

This is illustrated by their much stronger reaction to the killing of the French and Belgian hostages than to reports of mass executions of prisoners and civilians in Poland, Russia, and Yugo-Slavia.

b. When things go wrong, the public tends rather not to blame the enemy, but rather some section of those in authority. In this process, it is not unusual for the wrong scapegoat to be picked on. When no particular scapegoat can be found, the Government and all those in authority are, always excepting the Prime Minister, blamed indiscriminately.

c. The volume of grumbles varies inversely with the immediate difficulties and dangers which the public has to face. This statement requires qualification. If any section of the community feels that its sacrifices are greater than those of another section (e.g: Servicemen's dependants, who compare themselves with the wives of munition workers), then a loud wail goes up. Further, if the reasons for a sacrifice are not understood, or if its method of application appears unfair (e.g. income tax), a large volume of complaint also crises.

2. Present state of public feeling .

If those points are borne in mind, the present state of public feeling is not difficult to understand.

At home, rationing of food, clothing and petrol are accepted as a matter of course. The schemes are thought to be just, and to be functioning, on the whole, surprisingly well. There is a real sense of gratitude for the abundance of food supplies so far. The absence of air-raids and of any apparent threat of invasion have added to the remoteness of the bloody side of war. In the absence of immediate dangers to be faced and overcome, the volume of grumbling has increased.

The news of our retreats in the Near East and the Far East has failed to awaken the British public to a sense of urgency. They feel vaguely that “something is wrong somewhere”, and seek without great success to pin the blame onto some individual or section of those in authority. That there may be connections between events in the Near East and those in the Far East, or between the more distant past and the present, is seldom considered. The desire of the public to see mismanagement publicly condemned is well illustrated by the rise in the popularity of America when those responsible for the Pearl Harbour disaster were dealt with.

One facet of the war overseas is clearly connected with events in these islands. The public is under no delusions about its freedom from air-raids being directly connected with Russia's successes. The gratitude and the admiration for the great fight of the Russians far exceeds the feeling for any other foreign country. At the same time, to be told by the Russians that we ought to be working harder was first accepted with ill-grace by the workers, and that we ought to be better organised for production with ill-grace by the managements. British people are ready enough to condemn themselves, but they do not take kindly to hearing home truths from others, nevertheless this irritation died down when the Soviet delegation's report was published and found to be in accordance with the workers' own criticisms.

To return to events on the Home Front, it is generally felt that the two outstanding problems now to be tackled are:-

1. The organisation of production.

2. The organisation of man-power and woman-power. On how this is to be done, the public is inclined to be less specific. The main remedy suggested is “telling someone else how he ought to be doing his job, and naming some other body who would do it better.”

Yet, if the public appears to be in a capricious mood, its judgement on certain fundamentals seems sound. The entry of Japan into the conflict is generally thought to have greatly lengthened our task. A year age, a majority of the public anticipated 1-2 more years of war. Now they anticipate 1½ - 3 more years. And America's active participation is thought to have made our final victory an emphatic certainty. (Before her entry, our final victory was regarded as certain, but how this would be brought about was not clear.)

3. The lack of “urgency” .

The main characteristic, then, of public feeling at the moment is a lack of urgency. The problem which presents itself is first, whether it is possible by anything other than the direct impact of immediate events to remove this, and secondly whether it is desirable so to do. To supply answers is outside the scope of this review, but to marshal such evidence as has been accumulated on these points is justified.

  1. In the past, propaganda attempts to create an atmosphere of urgency (e.g: Gas-mask carrying campaigns) have been unsuccessful. When propaganda has been used as an adjunct to the impact of events (e.g: “Going to it,” after Dunkirk), results have been achieved. But it was then impossible to tell how much was due to the events and how much to the propaganda.

  2. In the second Emergency Report of the Industrial Health Research Council (published last week), it is shown that the increase in production which followed the fall of France was followed in due course by a decline in production as a result of long hours, 7-day weeks and fatigue. When steps were taken to deal with the fatigue (shorter hours, holidays, and a reduction in the length of the working week), production rose again, not always to peak level, but to a level substantially above the “pre-emergency” level. A genuine emergency had not only increased immediate production, but, when coupled with reduction in working hours, had increased production over a much longer period. Since no figures are available to us, we are unable to say whether more remote emergencies, when coupled with propaganda (e.g: “Tanks for Russia” week), are of value in raising long-term as well as immediate production.

  3. It is, in theory, arguable that it is undesirable to stimulate a sense of urgency except by reinforcing the impact of events. If, as the public anticipate, the war is to last for a considerable period of time, it may be valuable to have in hand a certain reserve of national effort - a bottom gear, as it were, available for changing into when the hill reaches its steepest part.

It is with considerations such as these in mind that the strategy of Home Front propaganda has to be worked out.

4. Atrocities

The findings of Home Intelligence in the past on the subject of atrocities as propaganda may be summarised as follows:-

1. The public is ready to believe stories, photographs or films showing Nazi atrocities on German citizens, the people of the occupied territories or on Russians. The pre-war record of the Nazis is such that these cause no surprise, and relatively little shock.

2. A section of the public is acutely concerned that photographs and films of atrocities should not be seen by children. There is no evidence to suggest that children are in fact upset by them.

3. The shooting of the French and Belgian hostages was considered more shocking than the butchering of much larger numbers of Poles, Russians, and Yugo-Slavs.

4. The possibility that such happenings might take place in Britain is only just beginning to be considered. Thus, women are beginning to discuss whether a stay-put policy will not lead to “worse than death”, and are speculating as to whether they and their daughters would not be better dead than in the hands of the German soldiery.

5. The main recorded effect of such atrocity propaganda as has been put out so far has been to increase the desire for a retributive peace and the demand that “we should drop the kid-glove methods and stop playing cricket”. In this connection, it may be mentioned that the desire for a retributive peace appears to have grown in the last three months, and there is considerable sympathy with what are believed to be Russia's intentions.

6. We have no evidence of the effect of atrocity propaganda on production.

7. We have no evidence of the effect on the public of atrocities on British subjects.

5. News presentation .

In the period under review, there has been considerably less blame of the Ministry of Information for faulty news presentation, or for bad news. (In the past, it was often the public's habit to blame the news services for our reverses.) There has been favourable comment whenever bad news has been released promptly (e.g: the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse), and vigorous criticism of military spokesmen in the Near and Far East, whenever bad news has been “dressed up”. This is regarded by the public as an insult to its ability to take the truth.

SOME SPECIAL COMMENTS

6. The Services .

The popularity of the Air Force with the public has slightly declined. The public appears to be tired of tales of individual exploits. It has been unwilling to accept the weather as a reason for the absence of heavy raids on Germany (though comments on this have declined of late). And the repeated raids on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Brest are compared unfavourably with the single Japanese attack on the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.

On the other hand, complaints of Army inefficiency, of food wasted at camps, of soldiers doing nothing, and of dangerous driving, have markedly declined. There has been a growth in sympathy for the position of soliders' dependants.

The silence of the Navy is accepted without question.

7. The U.S.A .

The personal popularity of the President continues unabated.

The popularity of the U.S. as a partner in the war has recently been increased by three factors:-

  1. The stout fight put up by General MacArthur and his men.

  2. The prompt publication of the findings of the Pearl Harbour Commission.

  3. The arrival of American troops in Northern Ireland.

The public are still prone to treat the United States as a member of the British family who can therefore be criticised with freedom and vigour.

8. The Dominions and India .

Interest in the Dominions is at present very limited. Interest in India, negligible six months ago, has slightly increased.

9. Women's call-up .

This is accepted as desirable and essential. The practical problems which arise from it are engaging much attention:-

  1. The problems of dependants and, young children; the need for day nurseries.

  2. The problems of the immobile woman, the older woman, and the woman who is anxious to work part-time.

  3. The problems of billets and hostels for mobile women.

  4. Transport difficulties.

  5. Shopping difficulties.

  6. Married women's income tax.

The A.T.S. appears to have turned the corner, and its unpopularity is declining.

10. Income Tax .

The new income-tax paying classes are finding it an unpleasant novelty. There are many allegations of deliberate absenteeism and reduction in over-time, in order to avoid paying tax. No figures are available to us.

Specific complaints are that a tax based on past earnings but levied on present reduced incomes leads to genuine hardship among certain groups of workers; and that the present rate of taxation on married women means that when they have paid for travel and for the care of their children, they have nothing left at all.

Post-war credit is still generally regarded as a myth.

Home Intelligence Division.

February 11th, 1942.

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