“ARIES” RECORD

Grey River Argus, 27 August 1946, Page 5

“ARIES” RECORD

CREW CONGRATULATED Visit to Government WELLINGTON, Aug. 26. "We hope you will be the forerunners of a regular three-day service between Britain and New Zealand within the next decade,” said Rt. Hon. W. Nash, this afternoon to Air Commodore N. H. D’Aeth, who is in charge of "the “Aries” mission, and to the members of the crew of the recordbreaking aircraft when they called upon him in Parliament Buildings, to present a letter from the British Minister of F'ood, Rt. Hon. Mr Strachey, to the New Zealand Government. The letter expressed appreciation of New Zealand’s efforts in providing foodstuffs for Britain during her time of difficulty. Mr Nash apologised for the absence of the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who was confined to his home to-day with a slight attack of influenza. Mr Nash said that the coupon-saving campaign in the Dominion had been somewhat disappointing at times, but that did not imply anything detrimental to the feeling of the people in this country towards Britain. It had been occasioned by concern felt at the shipment of some of our produce elsewhere, and also by conflicting opinions as to shortages in Britain. Mr Nash said that, from his observations there was none in Britain who was actually hungry. But the diet was monotonous. For such items as tomatoes, bananas and apples the people had to queue up in food lines. Mi’ Nash expressed the Government’s congratulations to the crew on the record they had achieved, and said that New Zealanders looked forward to the time when they would have only three days’ air travel from Britain and 24 hours from the United States. He thought that the latter was a likely development, because he had recently travelled from California to New Zealand in less than 31 hours. Mr T. N. Smallwood, chairman of the National Famine Emergency Committee, said the public of New Zealand had been very responsive to the appeal to help Britain. He stressed that the Dominion’s campaign was not restricted to coupon savings, but included the sending of individual parcels to Britain, and a drive for increased production in the coming season, to which the farmers were responding magnificently. Mr Nash, speaking aftei’ Mr Smallwood, said that, although he knew that the Famine Emergency Committee did not stress the sending of food parcels to Britain, he personally had seen the joy these parcels brought into homes which received them, and he believed that that joy was something worth breaking the rules of equity for. Air Commodore D’Aeth said that the time for the flight could have been reduced somewhat had the weather been better. He said that it had been planned six months ago to arrive in New Zealand on August 24, and that had been done. The crew had not been hand-picked. It was simply an expanded crew selected at the Empire Navigation School, to which had been added three instructors, who would give lectures to R.N.Z.A.F. personnel while the Aries was in New Zealand. Referring to New , Zealand s cooperation, Air Commodore D’Aeth mentioned that at a Wanganui hotel where they had lunched yesterday, they had been told that coupons would not be required from them because the members of the hotel staff had contributed coupons to provide for the visitors’ meal. The real purpose of the flight had not been to break the record, but to cement relations between Britain and New Zealand. Those relations, he found, were . already so strong that, from that viewpoint, their mission really was unnecessary.