MR. NASH'S OFFER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 73, 23 September 1943, Page 9

MR. NASH'S OFFER

THE WASHmGTON JOB

"You can have what was left of what I got: last year if you will pay what was short." This offer was made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) to ■ his Waiwetu audience last night when he was speaking of the cost of the: New Zealand Legation .at ington and of his own remuneration. "Mr. Nash said that when toe re^ turned from Washington he placed the accounts of the Legation and full details of expenditure before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, including Mes&r6. Poison, Goosman, Harker, Wilkinson, and Dickie; Those members said that they were satisfied with.the expenditure, and not one of them had- said anything about the ex* pens'es of the Legation at' Washington, but their colleagues had. The fact that those members knew the costs of the Legation did not stop Mr. Bodkin from saying something about it, and it did not stop people in the Hutt electorate trying to make out that he (Mr. Nash) was making a tremendous amount of money from the Government, ; A voice: Will Appleton reckons you get £7000. Mr. Nash: That's all right, but he knows what it is paid for. It's paid for running the Legation. Mr. Nash said that out of the 25,000 dollars under his control for the Legation, he had to pay four salaries,, keep the house in order, pay for entertainment, ancl get his own salary. That 25,000 dollars was the same- amount as was paid to the Australian Minister in Washington, but only about one-third of the 73,000 dollars paid to the British Minister for the same job. The cost of the Legation would be less:this year because of his period of absence from it, said Mr. Nash, He offered to make the accounts available, "to aiwdecent_citizen : "