UNRRA IN CHINA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 271, 28 August 1946, Page 8

UNRRA IN CHINA

WORK OF NEW ZEALANDERS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 27. First-hand information that New Zealand personnel serving with Unrra are pleasing the organisation, the Chinese, and foreign workers by their efforts in China has been brought back to the Dominion by Mr G. C. Burton, vocational guidance officer of the Education Department, who selected the team and who is now returning to his original post after a comprehensive tour of Unrra operations in China. He had been able to see 21 of the 34 New Zealanders employed with Unrra in China, Mr Burton said, and they had been in widely-scattered areas. In common with Unrra employees from other parts of the world, the New Zealanders and the Australians worked under considerable difficulties, and all the colonials’ resourcefulness was required. The world shortage of essential materials and equipment was felt in Unrra’s programme, one of the administration problems being to time the arrival of equipment with that of personnel recruited to operate it. “On the return journey I called for four days at Manila, where New Zealand is also represented on the administrative side of Unrra’s work,” said Mr Burton. “Conditions in Manila and certain parts of the Philippines are extremely distressing, and require all the help that can be made available.”