ALE FOR TROOPS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21992, 18 June 1941, Page 4

ALE FOR TROOPS

No Concern Of Patriotic Fund Board

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 17. A definite assurance has been received officially by the National Patriotic Fund Board that no foodstuffs of any kind have been shut out of transports to make space for beer. The board has been advised that all 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 cr Provincial Patriotic Councils, being purely a private matter between the brewery companies and the canteen authorities in Egypt, but at a recent conference of patriotic bodies in Wellington the matter was discussed from the angle whether beer was shipped to the exclusion of foodstuffs. Mrs 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 to the board, said this afternoon that an inquiry had been made and official advice'had been received that foodstuffs came first and that no foodstuffs had been shut out of transports to make way for beer. He reiterated that beer was not sent by the board or provincial natriotic councils, but was ordered by the overseas canteens from breweries in New Zealand.