CREW OF ARIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26241, 27 August 1946, Page 6

CREW OF ARIES

CALL ON MR NASH APPRECIATION EXPRESSED (P.AJ 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 the Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, this afternoon to Air Commodor,e N. H. D’Aeth, who is in charge of the Aries mission and to members, of the crew of the record-breaking aircraft when they called upon him in Parliament Buildings to present a letter from the British Minister of Food, Mr John 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 the concern felt at the shipment of some of our produce elsewhere and by conflicting opinions as to shortages in Britain. From his observations, Mr Nash said, no one in Britain was actually hungry, but the diet was monotonous, and for such items as tomatoes, bananas, and apples the people had to queue up in food Mr 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 be only three days’ air travel from Britain and 24 hours from the United States. He thought 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 that the public of New Zealand had been very responsive to the appeal to help Britain. The Dominion’s campaign was n°L r j S j c lu to coupon saving, 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 magmficently. Mr Nash said that he, personally, had seen the joy the food parcels brought into the home which received them, and he believed that joy was something worth breaking the rules of eq Air y Co°mmodore D’Aeth said that the time for the flight could have been reduced somewhat had the weather been better. He said 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. 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 was really unnecessary.