Speaker lost one of his hosts

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33241, 2 June 1973, Page 8

Speaker lost one of his hosts

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

NAGOYA (Japan), May 29.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives (Mr S. A. Whitehead), who is on a week’s visit to Japan as the guest of the Japanese Parliament, has suddenly found he has lost one of his hosts with the resignation of his Japanese counterpart in a political row.

Mr Umekivchi Nakamura, Speaker of the House of Representatives, resigned last night following what the press has described as a “slip of the tongue” when he said at a reception that he had deceived the Opposition parties into ending their recent boycott of Japanese Diet proceedings. Last night Mr and Mrs Whitehead and the other six members of the visiting New Zealand Parliamentary delegation were entertained at dinner here by the Mayor of Aichi Prefecture (Mr Mikine Kuwahara), the Mayor of Nagoya (Mr Masao Motoyama), and the Nagoya Chamber of Commerce.

In the ancient capital of Kyoto the members were taken on a tour of the former Imperial Palace and historic Nijo Castle, formerly the residence of successive Japanese Shoguns before the Meiji restoration.

In Osaka, Japan’s second biggest city, the Parliamentarians visited the site of Expo

70 and saw the Roy Cowan mural and Keith Allen sculpture at the Suita city library. The mural and the sculpture, which had been in the New Zealand pavilion, were presented to Suita city after Expo. The Parliamentary delegation today will fly to Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island.