WELCOME BACK TO N.Z.

Wanganui Chronicle, 12 March 1947, Page 5

WELCOME BACK TO N.Z.

LORD AND LADY BLEDISLOE GREETED AT WELLINGTON (Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 11 Cries of “Welcome back, welcome back” and “It’s grand to see you again” were shouted from a small crowd of enthusiastic spectators on the Queen’s Wharf this morning when Lord and Lady Bledisloe stepped ashore from the Wahine on to New Zealand soil, after an absence of nearly twelve years.

There was no mistaking the warmth of the welcome, and the former Governor-General of New Zealand and his wife were obviously thrilled to be returning to what will always be to them their “second home.”

As they stepped on to the gangway applause and cheers broke out from the crowd, and smiling happily, Lord and Lady Bledisloe shook hands like old friends with the people lining the barrier and chatted informally with them.

People in the crowd were heard to remark that Lord and Lady Bledisloe had changed little since they were last in the Dominion and that they both looked as fresh and carefree as when they left. “It’s the best sight I’ve seen for the past 10 years,” Lord Bledisloe told the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser), looking out over Wellington from the deck of the Wahin j. The Prime Minister, who was accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. E. L. Cullen), the Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Myers and Lady Myers, Sir James Elliott, Major the Hon. Neville Wigram, representing the GovernorGeneral, and Mr. C. Costley White, of the United Kingdom High Commission’s Office, who represented Sir Patrick Duff in his absence from Wellington, boarded the ship as soon as she had tied up and welcomed Lord and Lady Bledisloe back to New Zealand.

To the newspaper representatives who met him at the home of the High Commissioner (Sir Patrick Duff) and Lady Duff (where Lord and Lady Bledisloe will stay, owing to the absence from Wellington of the Gover-nor-General and Lady Freyberg), the former Governor-General remarked: “Well, I feel more like catechising you people than letting you catechise me.” He had returned, he said after an absence of 12 years, as “just an ordinary farmer on a good-will mission” to the six agricultural societies of Australia and that in New Zealand.

Despite a strenuous Australian itinerary, and the' fact that the visitors had had a somewhat rough voyage from Sydney, Lord Bledisloe does not give the impression of a man in his eightieth year. He was delighted to learn, he remarked, that owing to a rearrangement of his New Zealand itinerary (because of a later sailing date for the Rimutaka), it would be possible to visit the South Island. “We have asked that Christchurch and Nelson should be included,” he said, “even if it is impossible travel further south.” Lady Bledisloe observed: “It is just like coining home again! Wellington never looked more beautiful than when we came in this morning glorious sunshine.” CAMPAIGN FOR MORE FOOD. "So grave is the food situation in Great Britain at present that it is threatening to affect the working efficiency of our home population,” said Viscount Bledisloe. His good-will mission on behalf of the Society to the farmers of Australia, he said, had developed into an unofficial campaign for the sending of further supplies ot food, particularly meat, and butter and other fats, as and when they could be spared and shipping became available, to relieve the crying wants of the Old Country. Similar missions had been undertaken, in relation to the traffic particularly of livestock, to Argentina, Sweden, Holland and Denmark. “It occurred to me that the time had arrived for some one to go to some parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, particularly in view of the growing importance ot both New Zealand and Australia as sources of food supply for the world, and especially for the Old Country,” said Lord Bledisloe. “I asked that the first misson should go to these two Dominians. The answer of my council was: 'We are quite in sympathy with the proposal, but those countries are a long way off. Whom shall we send 9 ' My answer, in the words of the Old Book, was: 'Here am 1. Send me!' That is the reason I am here.”