INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27150, 21 September 1953, Page 7

INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND

LICENCES AVAILABLE TO IMPORT EQUIPMENT (New Zealand Press. Association) WELLINGTON, September 18. The Government was anxious to see that the application of its policy of restricting dollar licences to goods that were essential did not retard the acquisition of any equipment necessary for the work of the New Zealand Institute for the Blind, said the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr J. T Watts) today. Mr Watts was commenting on the statement in Auckland of the secretary-general of the institute (Mr E. W. Christiansen) that lack of hard currency was retarding the importation of American contrivances to assist the blind. Mr Watts has written to Mr Christiansen, saying that he has checked with the Customs Department and had been told that the licences asked for by the Institute for the Blind in its own name had been granted and so far as the department could recall goods imported by commercial firms on the institute’s behalf, such a special typewriters, had also been licensed. “If you will lodge with the Collector of Customs, Auckland, applications for American equipment which is needed for your work and which cannot be bought elsewhere, licences will be issued to you as I am assured they have been in the past,” said Mr Watts in his letter.