MR ATTLEE'S VISIT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 97, 10 July 1946, Page 2

MR ATTLEE'S VISIT

NOTHING TO DO WITH ELECTION Commenting on the reported remarks of Mr Morton in his reference to the visit of Mr Attlee to New Zealand as a "fine propaganda stunt,", the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) made the following* statement: "The degree of courtesy and hospitality extended to a guest of the country, and that guest the Prime Minister of the. United Kingdom and .the recognised political head of the British Commonwealth and Empire in the reported remarks of Mr H. T. Morton, M.P., at the Khandallah Town Hall, and the quality and amount of the taste exhibited, I am content to leave to the appraisal of the people of New Zealand. It is at least satisfactory that fortunately in the history of the Dominion they are unusual and unprecedented and are not at all likely to be emulated by anyone else. "I hasten to dissipate Mr Morton's obvious fears that the proposed visit of Mr Attlee has had anything to do with the impending General Election. I assure him so that he can feel more composed, that there was n 6 deep-laid scheme to lure the British Labour Prime Minister into any election or pre-election imbroglio. "I cannot see that a visit from Mr Attlee could possibly have any more effect upon the New Zealand General Election than, say, a visit from Mr Churchill, because both would meticulously observe the invariable rule of abstaining from word or deed involving partisanship or any interference in the internal affairs of any country, British or foreign, of which they would be the guest. Mr Churchill Invited. "Now it may be of some interest •to Mr Morton to know that I have repeatedly invited Mr Churchill to visit New Zealand, and if the war with Japan had not ended so suddenly that visit would, have taken place last year or at the latest, early •this year. Mr Churchill would have come as British Prime Minister.

"In issuing that invitation and repeatedly pressing Mr Churchill to accept it, I took no account whatever of a General Election oeing due this year. I don't believe that the presence of either Mr Attlee or Mr Churchill would make the slightest difference in the political opinions and outlook of the people of New Zealand."

Referring to criticisms. of luxurious air travel to England Mr Fraser said that the facts were that the Skymaster plane in which he travelled was no choice of his, and it cost the country nothing, so the £12,000 was just a pure or impure invention of Mr Morton. A request had been made to the British Government to provide a plane, because of the difficulties of travel, and no mention had been made of any particular kind of plane. As for the strawberries, which worried Mr Morton so much, he knew absolutely nothing of what they cost to send to London. For the information he would refer Mr Morton to Mr Harvey Turner, of Turner and Growers, Auckland', who assumed full responsibility for the small gift. Mr Fraser said his part was simply to receive the strawberries and give them to the sick and crippled little ones in the children's hospital in Great Ormond Street, who gladly opened their mouths to receive them just as wide' as Mr. Morton did to talk nonsense at Khandallah.