Beer Does Net Come Before Foodstuffs

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 143, 18 June 1941, Page 4

Beer Does Net Come Before Foodstuffs

POSITION ON TRANSPORT SHIPS CLARIFIED Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 17. A definite assurance has been received officially by the National Patriotic Fund Board that no foorstuffs of any kind have been shut out of transport ships to make space for beer. The Board has been advised that ail the food requirements of the New Zealand forces overseas are given priority of loading. The sending of beer to the troops has nothing whatever to do with the National Patriotic Fund or the Provincial Patriotic Councils, being a purely private matter between the brewery companies and the canteen authorities in Egypt. But at t a recent conference of patriotic bodies'in Wellington the matter was discussed from the angle of whether beer was shipped to the exclusion of foodstuffs. Airs. J. Hargest, wife of Brigadier Hargest, was one who was prominent in the discussion and she asked for an investigation to be made into the position. Mr. G. Hayden, secretary of the Board, stated this afternoon that the inquiry had been aud official advice had been received that foodstuffs came first and that no foodstuffs had been shut out on transport ships to .make way for beer. He reiterated that beer was not sent by the Board or the Provincial Patriotic Councils but was ordered, by overseas canteens from breweries in New Zealand.