PARCELS FOR PACIFIC TROOPS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 March 1944, Page 5

PARCELS FOR PACIFIC TROOPS

DELAY IN RECEPTION (From our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, March 9. An assurance that urgent representations would be made to ensure that New Zealanders in the forward areas in the Pacific should receive parcels as soon as possible was given by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) in the House of Representatives. The subject was raised by Mr W. A. Bodkin (National, Central Otago), who asked if it was possible to make better arrangements for the delivery of such parcels. He said that letters from soldiers in the Pacific complained that no parcels had been received notwithstanding that relatives in New Zealand had posted parcels every month. Further, a large quantity of parcels had arrived on a forward island but lay there so long that the bags rotted and some of the contents had to be buried. The Prime Minister said that the Minister of Defence (Hon. F. Jones) had endorsed to some extent what Mr Bodkin had said. New Zealand could only make the most urgent representations about the matter because the traffic was controlled by their American allies. If Mr Bodkin could provide the instance the fullest investigations would follow and representations would be made.