LANG'S "BEST MAN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 118, 21 May 1931, Page 7

LANG'S "BEST MAN."

A. C. WILLIS IN LONDON. LONDON, May 15. "I have not come to apologise for New South Wales, but to represent the position fairly, to put the case properly, and fight for it if necessary. If Ido not succeed by those means I shall return." Thus Mr. A. C. Willis, the new AgentGeneral for New South Wales, explained his mission after landing from the Aquitania. Though Mr. Willis was reticent concerning his activities during the few days he spent in New York, he confided that he had discussed the New South Wales position and Australia generally with financiers. "If I were in Mr. Lang's position," Mr. Willis said, in reply to a question about the preferential payment of United States bondholders, "I would sooner —if I had little funds —meet obligations outside the family than inside, knowing that the family would understand. I. will tell the critics of my own case. I have two sisters, one living in the United Kingdom, interested in Australian stocks, and suffering at the present time from the market decline. The other lives in Australia, and is suffering from her husband's unemployment. Which should Australia help first? "My job is to explain the position of NeW South Wales, which is 50 per cent of Australia. What New South Wales does to-day Australia does to-morrow, and the rest of the world 20 years afterwards." Mr. Willis is in excellent health.