TRAVEL DELAYS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21979, 25 March 1946, Page 2

TRAVEL DELAYS

PASSAGES TO N.Z. LONG WAITING LIST TASK FOR MR. JORDAN (S.R.) WELLINGTON, March 23. “You want to see me about bringing someone out from England? How did I know that?” New Zealand's High Commissioner in London, Mr. W. J. Jordan, ended a telephone talk and explained that the man at the other end seemed surprised .to hear that his business was already known. “It’s nearly always that.” said the genial High Commissioner, who has spent much of his New Zealand holiday dealing with this problem. “Letters,” lie said, "followed me all round the country—hundreds of them—and to give replies I have had to get secretarial aid from the Government, from helpful local authorities, and in one case from a businessman’s staff. The average number of these inquiries has been 120 a week.”

Mr. Jordan described what is being done to meet a very urgent transport need. He has regularly forwarded the applications to New Zealand House, so that they can be immediately repre-. sented to the Ministry of Transport which allots passenger berths. Servicemen’s Wives First

"The first, most urgent priority," he said, “must be given to servicemen’s wives who have been left behind in England. It is bad to keep these young people separated for long periods. Then, in considering priorities, regard must be had to the length of time people have been waiting for a passage to New Zealand —some three or four years. We keep on bringing up all cases, and I believe the Ministry is doing its best to make ships available, but they keep on telling us that other countries are having the same trouble.

“We tried at first to pack as many as possible on New Zealand-bound ships, because the applicants said, 'We will be thankful for even a shakedown,’ but when they got here they were full of complaints. We had to stop accepting passengers on those terms.”

Asked to give an estimate of the waiting-list in England, Mr. Jordan said that when he left there were 1200 wives and dependants of servicemen awaiting passages, but that number was down almost to zero. However, there was a long list of others, including quite a number who wanted 'to come .to New Zealand for health reasons; some to see relatives; some to take over businesses or farms from their old parents. Nomination System “Until this accumulation is dealt with, it will be difficult to handle ordinary immigrants,” said Mr. Jordan when he was asked to discuss the prospects of expanding the Dominion’s population by immigration. “When our servicemen and women are settled, the Government will give consideration to this question. “I have suggested that in the first place there should be a nomination system, under which our own servicemen may nominate as immigrants some of the men with whom they served in the Navy and the R.A.F. It will be more difficult for Army men to make nominations as our Division was allNew Zealand. One of our airmen might say, ‘My rear gunner would like to come out,’ and a Navy man back in New Zealand might put up the name of a British colleague who was a good petty officer and wanted to emigrate with his family.

“This kind of immigration would,” added Mr. Jorlan, “be first-class, because the immigrants would be picked for character and suitability, and their New Zealand nominator would be a friend to welcome them, and probably would have looked out for a job for them.”