GIFT SHIP SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 14

GIFT SHIP SCHEME.

HON. W. NASH'S VIEW.

INADVISABLE AT PRESENT.

WHAKATAXE, Friday

/The suggestion made at tlie meeting C"" Society and St. John Alliance Association committees that a Ship" be dispatched to En»land ' carrying produce JTrom-this country, and which was commended some weel« ago by the Prime Minister, the Kt. Hon P. Fraser, lias been described by the Minister of Finance; the Hon. W. a ash, in a letter to! the secretary, vL,v Da f?i C at tlie P r «*nt time in \ ie\\ °f the numerous other appeals and tho fact that the foodstuff supplies in Britain now arc at storage capacity. In his letter, the Minister states that the -matter was referral to him as Minister of Marketing bv the Prime -Minister. • The proposal,?' he writes, has received the consideration of th« Government and lias also been discussed with the secretary of the National Patriotic Fund Board. The position at the moment, however, is that all available fillips , are already engaged in carrying foodstuffs and other essential primary products to the United Kingdom.

Under these circumstances it is regretted that ,a vessel could not be made available for a gift cargo without a. serious dislocation of our shippin- r programme. It is understood, moreover, that at the present time supplies -or foodstuffs are up to the storage capacity of. the United Kingdom, particularly in regard to the products which Xew Zealand- has available for export."