NOTHING DISHONOURABLE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19104, 27 August 1936, Page 10

NOTHING DISHONOURABLE

AIRWAYS EVIDENCE FINANCE STATEMENTS COMMITTEE OPINION (Per PreßS Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. The petition of New Zealand Airways Limited against the refusal of the late Transport Co-ordination Board to grant a license to operate a major air service in the Dominion, which occupied a select committee of the House of Representatives last week, took a new turn to-day. Mr. Trevor Withers, of Auckland, promoter of Great Pacific Airways asked to be given an opportunity to rebut a statement made by Mr. A. J. Conway, former secretary of the board and now an officer of the Transport Department. Mr. Conway, in a statement, said that except for an obvious reason and a minor error that he was referred to in an Auckland paper as the Controller of Aviation, the press report, taken as a brief Stimmarv. was a fair report. Mr. Withers detailed the history of the formation of Great Pacific Airways, and explained that the board had been ultimately satisfied that the company's statement that £60,000 had been underwritten in Australia as capital for the enterprise, was correct. His company never misled the board into believing that Great Pacific Airways would not need a subsidy. The position was perfectly clear to the board. After considering Mr. Withers' representations the committee slated that it felt Mr. Withers' purpose would be adequately served if his integrity was cleared in the eyes of the public. Mr. Conway's statement was simply to the effect that certain evidence given was subsequently found to be incorrect, without deliberately misleading anybody. There was nothing dishonourable or deliberately misleading in it. The committee had' no desire to imply or impute that Mr. Withers misled the board. Any inconsistencies in his statements were, it was satisfied, the result of the rapidly changing circumstances between the dates on which the board sat, and Mr. Withers was not responsible for them.