GIFT APPROVED

Evening Star, Issue 26043, 6 March 1947, Page 6

GIFT APPROVED

MIGHT HAVE TAKEN MORE PRACTICAL FORM WHY LEAVE PRESS TO INFORM PARLIAMENT? (Special.) WELLINGTON, March 6. Approving New Zealand’s gesture of help to Britain, Mr S. G. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, said to-day that he would have preferred to see it take a more practical form than finance. He was also critical of the Government’s failure to take all the people’s parliamentary representatives into its confidence beforehand, “ No person with knowledge of Britain’s dire straits,” said Mr Holland, “ can do other than approve of any gesture to demonstrate our admiration of the British people’s sacrifices during the war, particularly when made at a time when they are passing through another crisis, which makes any expression of our sympathy quite timely. “ It seems to me that we want to do something to provide the things Britain needs rather than reduce her financial obligations. Here was a great opportunity for New Zealand to remove some of the impediments that stand in the way of more production of the things which Britain needs, and which we can easily supply. We should say to Britain that the flow of goods from this oountry will proceed without interruption—a ' practical way of meeting their immediate need in the form they want. “The first I heard of the matter,” added Mr Holland, “ was when I saw it in the newspapers, and in the name of the parliamentary Opposition I enter an emphatic protest at one-half of New Zealand’s Parliament being ignored oyer a questi- which transcends all considerations of party politics. It would have fully justified the calling of Parliament to approve it, for this is a gift of the people’s money, not the Government’s. Parliament will spend weeks discussing small items on the Estimates, but £l2f millions of New Zealand money is voted away without consultation. I frankly think we have chosen a way that will have the least practical benefit to the people we are trying to help.”