NOT PRACTICAL GIFT, SAYS MR. HOLLAND

Chronicle (Levin), 6 March 1947, Page 5

NOT PRACTICAL GIFT, SAYS MR. HOLLAND

BRITAIN'S FOOD NEED GREATER WELLINGTON, March 6. "While £10,000,000 seems a substantial gift to make to Britain, it will not put one ounce more food into the mouths of the people and will not provide one more yard of clothing, which is really what the people want," said the Leader of thc Opposition, Mr. S. G. Holland, today, Although supporting the gift, Mr. Holland said it was perhaps the least practical way of expressing New Zealand's sentiments, and he considered that more goods and not "a book entry" would have been more appropriate. He registered an emphgtic protest against the Government's failure to consult Parliament before making a decision on the matter. No person who had any knowledge whatever of the dire straits Britain had drifted into could do other than approve any gesture which would demonstrate to the people there New Zealand's admiration of their sacrifices during the war, said Mr. Holland, and it was doubly appropriate now that Britain was passing through another crisis. However, food would have been more satisfactory. "Here was a great opportunity for New Zealand to remove some of Ihe im^ediments that stand in the wgy of more production of the things Britain urgently needs," he said; "and which, with proper organisation, could quite easily be supplied. If we could say to the British people that a flow of goods from here would proceed unintcrrupted, it would be a practical way of meeting their immediate needs in the form they would most appreciate." Alr. Holland later added that it seemed to him that the great qu.estions of the day fully justifled the calling of Parliament together, and the gift shouid properly have been discussed in Parliament.