CLAIM FOR £500,000

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26186, 9 August 1950, Page 3

CLAIM FOR £500,000

NONPAYMENT BY BRITAIN COMMENT BY AUDITORGENERAL (Krom Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, August 8. Criticism of the “casual” efforts made to collect inter-governmental claims involving considerable amounts of money is made by the Controller and AuditorGeneral (Mr J. P. Rutherford) in his annual report. He refers to an amount of £500,000 due to New Zealand from the United Kingdom Government on the liquidation of the assets of the Linen Flax Section. “It might have been expected that this claim for so useful a sum as £500.000 would have oeer. closely, even though tactfully, pressed. The cla’m was first made through the High Commissioner for New Zealand in London in August, 1949. It was not until November that the High Commissioner advised that he was unable to report any progress. »T.ast April—five months later—the Treasury asked for further information, but no reply had been received in another two months, when the Treasury wrote again.” The report adds that the accounts of the Linen Flax Corporation of New Zealand, which now controls the industry, showed a loss of £48.800 for the year ended December 31