CASH GIFT TO BRITAIN DEFENDED BY MR. FRASER

Wanganui Chronicle, 11 March 1947, Page 5

CASH GIFT TO BRITAIN DEFENDED BY MR. FRASER

MOST PRACTICAL AND ACCEPTABLE FORM HE MAINTAINS (P.A.) Wellington, March 8. Mr. Holland airily dismissed as a “book entry ’ New Zealand’s gift ol £12,500,000 (£10,000,000 sterling) to Great Britain, but it was the most practicable and acceptable form of gift which could be made at the present, said the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, last night. As most people were aware, he added, practically all New Zealand’s exportable surplus of meat and dairy produce went to Britain and as the Associated Chambers of Com-' merce had pointed out, it was impossible to send by gift anything over 100 per cent. It could fairly be presumed that if Parliament had lieen called together Mr. Holland would have dissented from and criticised the Government s decisions as he did now-

The Government fully agreed that the flow of goods from New Zealand to Great Britain without interruption would be the most practical way of meeting Britain’s needs, but it did not agree that anything should stand in the way of the immediate and prac-

tical form of assistance it had decided on. The sum now made available to Britain means that in purchasing food from the Dominion the United Kingdom would not become indebted* to that extent. It was, in fact, a free gift, of food and other New Zealand commodities to the amount of £12,500,000. “To-day, in addition to helping Britain with supplies of food, there were other means of practical co-operation, and this financial gift was one. If any evidence was needed, the suitability ot this form of assistance might be gauged from the fact that in the terms of the American loan to Britain mention was made of the necessity for Britain to reduce the sterling balances accumulated by other countries.

It should not be necessary to tell Mr. Holland that it was the prerogative of the Government to administer the country’s affairs and that in making an administrative decision it had acted in accordance with constitutional practice and with the procedure followed by previous Governments. ABSURD ALLEGATION, SAYS MR. HOLLAND. “Mr- Fraser can say what he likes, but the statement I made yesterday concerning a reduction of £10,000,000 in our sterling funds as a gift to Britain stands as an accurate statement of facts,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, last night. The Prime Minister’s allegation that he had made a controversy of the matter was absurd, added Mr. Holland. Public men surely had the right to examine an expenditure of £12,500,000 of the people’s money. Surely Mr. Fraser did not claim to be the only one to have an opinion as to the best form in which help could be given. Mr. Holland said that on no occasion had he seen a single communication from Britain asking New Zealand that she be assisted by a reduction in her overseas indebtedness, but he had seen hundreds of messages and appeals from leaders in British life, both political and industrial, asking, that growers of foodstuffs increase the quantity being supplied to Britain in her hour of need. No one would say that this country was incapable of a considerable increase in the production of the things that Britain needed most. It was no good the Prime Minister trying to make out that he was opposed to helping Britain, Mr- Holland added. He knew that that was not so and he made that clear in his statement, but what, he had said and would still say was that the most practical form of helping the people of Britain was to supply them with food of which they were so perilously short. The gift of money would not put an ounce of food in one person’s mouth-

THANKS FROM BRITAIN EMIGRANTS IN RETURN FOR PRACTICAL GIFTS Recd. 6 p.m- London, March 9. The “Sunday Times,” in a doublecolumn front-page panel headed “The People’s Thanks,” says: “The gifts of £25,000,000 from Australia and £10,000,000 from New Zealand are worth far more to Britain than so much subtracted from the large overhang of our financial future. At a dark moment of our national destiny they bespeak the spirit of brotherly love and mutual aid that animates the British Commonwealth itself, While this endures, all is not gloom and danger. The gifts are in effect part of the financial war in which every nation of the Commonwealth took a full share, but they are also part of the reconstruction for peace, in which, too, we need to pull together. “The United Kingdom, with its strained resources, can return nothing precisely equivalent, but if we cannot give pounds we can give people. We are sending, and we shall continue to send, some of our best young citizens as emigrants to the Dominions. These, too, are valuable gifts, rich human capital. Like the Dominions’ latest gifts to us, they come from a ready heart, warmed by the faith that in the welfare of each member nation of our community lies the welfare of us all.”