N.Z. WILL NOT BE THERE!

Chronicle (Levin), 8 November 1947, Page 4

N.Z. WILL NOT BE THERE!

Press Association)

UNFINISHED WEDDING GIFT FOR PRINCESS

(Per .

WELLINGTON, Last Night. Over a thousand wedding presents, ranging from the humble but acceptable food parcel to a thoroughbred filly and priceless jewels, will bs showered on Princess Elizabeth on. her wedding day, November 20, but New Zealand 's gift will not be there. The Government has announced its decision to send a writing desk, but inquiries made in Wellington today revealed that the dssk is still in the drawing-board stage and eannot possibly be linished and sent to London in time for the Royal wedding. The inquiry was prompted by the

sight in the window of a Wellington furniture store this week of a heart rimu tallboy and matching lowboy, which the capital city is sending to Fiehl-Marshal Viscount ilontgomery. The tallboy has four large drawers, two smaller drawers and cabriole legs, and is finished with a high polish. The gift of a writing desk constructed from selected New Zealand woods and with suitable Maori carvings and greenstone features was announced by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, in the House of Representatives as long ago as Oetober 22. .Since then, an iron curtain of ofiicial reticence has fallen over all details connected with the desk, despite the fact that it will be a gift from the people of New Zealand. Officials in Wellington are extremely cautious on the subject of the writing desk. It was only after the greatest difiii-ulty that your correspondent located the designer in a smali oflice in the centre of a veritable labyrinth of corridors which go to make up the old wooden Government building opposite Parliament Buildings. The designer is an architect on the staff of the State Housing Construction Department, but his lips were sealed as he had been instructed to observe the strictest confidence. It was impossible to gain even a hint of the proposed design, but it was discovered later tlie working designs of the desk are only now being completed. Approaches have been made to several furniture manufacturers to make various portions of the desk, but so far the actual eonstruction has not started. The Princess has been told of her present but will not see it for some time.