MISS HOWARD ON WAY HOME

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28976, 18 August 1959, Page 14

MISS HOWARD ON WAY HOME

Rotterdam Planning “A Marvel” (From the London Correspondent of "The Press”! LONDON. August 10 The Minister of Social Security, Miss M. B. Howard, left London airport today for New York on the first stage of her return to New Zealand after being a guest in Britain of the United Kingdom branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. She also toured in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Miss Howard will spend two days in New York, then go to San Francisco and Los Angeles. She will reach Auckland by air from Honolulu on August 21. During her visit to the Continent Miss Howard toured Paris, “walked for miles” in the Swiss Alps, spent a day at both Amsterdam and Rotterdam and a day in the offices of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. “I was taken on a tour of the canals in Amsterdam and saw the results of town planning after bomb damage in Rotterdam. The planning there was a marvel to me.” said Miss Howard before she left London. “A huge fireworks display I saw at the Hague was a magnificent finale to my trip.” Miss Howard’s programme did not allow for inquiries into child welfare work in Britain which, as Minister in charge of the Welfare of Women and Children, she had hoped to study. With Mr J. K. McAlpine, M.P., also a guest of the Parliamentary Association, she made her television debut with an interview in Belfast. During a visit to New-castle-on-Tyne she was able to see the centralised records operations of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance where the records of 30 million contributors are kept. “I asked if they could produce the dossier of my secretary from New Zealand House They had it in a matter of seconds.” said Miss Howard. “The outstanding thing about my visit has been how, from the start, everybody has been willing to help with kindness and co-operation. The C.P.A. people were wonderful. But I shall be glad to be home.”

In London, Miss Howard was able to indulge a mjld passion for buying hats including one which “I carried in my hand. I was too afraid to wear it. But I have bought some wonderful hats.”