appointment of MR DOIDGE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26510, 27 August 1951, Page 6

appointment of MR DOIDGE

STATEMENT BY MR HOLLAND

REPLY TO LABOUR CANDIDATE (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 26. The High Commissioner in London (Mr F. W. Doidge) had been appointed for a period of three years, said the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) today. He was commenting on the statement of the Labour candidate for Parnell (Mr H. Watt) that “When the Labour Party gets into power, we will put someone in who can represent New Zealand better than Mr Doidge can.” x „ . . “I remind anybody who talks about withdrawing people from official posts that under the present Government not one man has lost an appointment before the normal effluxion of time, said Mr Holland. Sir Carl Berendsen and Mr W. J. Jordan, both Labour appointees, were examples. It would be a sorry day for New Zealand if a change of Government was accompanied by the sacking of those serving their country, Mr Holland said. Labour election statements that Mr Doidge’s was a political appointment did not come very well from people who had posted three defeated election candidates to high offices in Moscow, Australia and Canada. They appeared to have forgotten that Mr Jordan had been sent to London by the old Government soon after it came to power in 1935. In reply to a question, the Prime Minister said that Sir Carl Berendsen would retire from his post of Minister to Washington at the end of this year. ___