Holland and Doidge In London for VE Day

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 111, 12 May 1945, Page 5

Holland and Doidge In London for VE Day

COMPREHENSIVE TOUR OF INDUSTRIAL BRITAIN

Received Friday, 10.25 p.m. LONDON, May 11. The High Commissioner (Mr. W. J. Jordan) and Messrs Holland and Doidge are going to the Continent today where they intend to visit New Zealand squadrons and also gain a general impression of Germany after her defeat.

Mr. Holland and Mr. Doidge returned to London from the Midlands and Scotland in time for the VE Day celebrations. They were in the Commons when Mr. Churchill made his historic, statement. In Bradford they visited a factory and saw every process in clothmaking from the fleece to the finished article, in Manchester they lunched with the Lord Mayor and councillors

whom Mr. Holland addressed for half an hour, and in Derby they visited many farms. On one dairy farm they learned that cattle were housed for seven months in the year. They also saw a prosperous farm which before the war had been derelict and used for training horses. In Castle Brcmwich they visited a factory building Lancasters and Spitfires where there are 17,000 employees, of whom half are women.

In Coventry they saw the ruins of the cathedral and were entertained by the Lord Mayor. In Glasgow after visiting the Clydeside Mr. Holland addressed a public meeting and the audience asked him many questions on New Zealand social security. They wanted to Know how it was financed and whether the workers paid taxation thereto. Mr. Holland was also asked why even in prewar days New Zealand was insufficiently advertised in Scotland. Another question was: How does New Zealand expect Britain to buy her goods if Britain is “locked out” from New Zealand. In Edinburgh Messrs Holland and Doidge visited the Henry Robb shipbuilding yards where two coastal ships were being built for New Zealand.