NURSES FOR SPAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1937, Page 18

NURSES FOR SPAIN

POLICE INTERROGATION COMMITTEE WANTS INQUIRY (By Telegraph—Pre6S Association.) AUCKLAND, May 25. ! Exception to certain phases of the police interrogation of .the three nurses from New Zealand who are on their way to Spain under the auspices of the New Zealand Spanish medical aid organisation has been taken by the Auckland Spanish Medical Assistance Committee. An inquiry into the position is being urged by the committee, which has cabled to Sydney for statements from the nurses about the exact nature of the police examination. No exception was taken to the action of the police acting on the instructions of the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry) in asking for the nurses' credential!. The cemmittee, in a statement, points out that it had been widely advertised that the nurses were going to Spain under the auspices of the Spanish medical aid organisation, and that the Minister knew that this organisation and others were approved by the British Government. However, the committee agreed that it was reasonable for the Minister to have this down in writing. The committee objects to what happened after the police had satisfied themselves of the nurses' credentials of association with an organisation approved by the British Government and under the presidency of Dr. D. G. McMillan',M.P. The statement adds: — "It would seem that* after this the police had only to communicate their findings to the passport authorities so that the nurses' passports might be endorsed. Instead, they seem to have cross-examined the nurses individually for the best part of an afternoon about their political opinions."