FREE TRAVEL FOR MR CHURCHILL

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26662, 22 February 1952, Page 7

FREE TRAVEL FOR MR CHURCHILL

Question Asked In Commons (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec.' 11 p.m.),LONDON, February 21. There was a noisy 10 minutes in the House of Commons at question time, when Colonel G. E. C. Wigg (Labour) asked the circumstances of Mr Churchill’s acceptance of an offer by the Cunard Company to provide free travel facilities to and from the United States. Colonel Wigg asked what regulations had been laid down to govern the acceptance of gifts and services from commercial undertakings to Ministers of the Crown and what other gifts and services similar to that of the Cunard Company had been provided to Mr Churchill and Mr Eden since the present Government assumed office? Mr Churchill said no specific regulations had been laid down, but it was well understood that no Minister or public servant should accept gifts or services which placed him under an obligation to any commercial undertaking. The cost of two passages by him and one by Mr Eden, which were given by the Cunard Company, amounted to £1752. “Similar facilities were provided by the United States and Canadian railways. The gifts and services of the Cunard Company, as well as those of the two railways, were not to the Ministers, but to British taxpayers.” There was uproar in the Opposition benches and cheers from the Conserva. tives before Mr Churchill added: “I

appreciate the courtesy and compliment implied in the action of the British, Canadian, and United States bodies concerned. I cannot feel there is anything discreditable in what happened, except perhaps the spirit that prompted the question.” Colonel Wigg: The spirit which prompted the question was zeal for public efficiency. Mr Churchill said that, knowing the kind of mood which was about in certain quarters, he had proposed to pay all his own expenses for entertainment, apart from transport, but the company had brushed this proposal aside and made its offer. “I consider in the circumstances that it was a public-spirited action on their part and one which I was fully justified in approving, f may say that there are precedents for Ministers accepting the hospitality of this company. But las they would carry mo down to the depths prevailing in some quarters, I won’t recall them.”