AMERICA'S AID

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 65, 14 September 1943, Page 4

AMERICA'S AID

NOT BALANCE-SHEET AFFAIR P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, This Day* "Statements like those of Mr. Doidge [ cause ill will instead of building solidarity and friendship," said the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser), referring to comments by Mr. Doidge on the lease-lend. Mr. Fraser said it war humbug to suggest that the United States might take advantage of the situation.

"Mr. Doidge shows clearly that he has not the slightest comprehension of; what lease-lend means," said Mr. Fraser. "It does not mean going into debt." The United States supplied aid to New Zealand, which gave in return what it could. It did not matter how the balance-sheet stood. Mr. Doidge had missed the very conceptipn of what the war was being fought for. The United States had been a generous good neighbour and had put a wall between New Zealand and the Japanese. Without that assistance Ne*y Zealand might have been invaded." -

The view was expressed at a, meeting of the Wanganui Primary Production Council that a shortage of labour was considered the biggest obstacle to increasing the wheat acreage in the Wanganui district The council had before it a request that a survey should be made of the wheatgrowing potentialities of district farms having, easy access to the railway, and , not at present growing- wheat to a f? reasonable extent. The letter stated ■ that it was desired to increase production of wheat to 350,000 acres for the coming season. , , '