TALKS IN LONDON

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20060, 5 October 1939, Page 5

TALKS IN LONDON

EMPIRE MINISTERS PROPOSAL APPROVED DELEGATES FROM N.Z. ’ MR. FRASER~"SUGGESTED MAY TRAVEL BY AIR (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. In the course of a brief statement in the House of Representatives last evening on the co-ordination of the war activities of the British Commonwealth, the acting Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Fraser, announced that, in order to supplement the existing arrangements for collaboration between the Governments of the British Commonwealth, the British Government recently inquired whether the other Governments concerned would be ready to arrange to send a Cabinet Minister to London to confer with the Ministers there and. with each other on co-ordination to the best advantage which each section of the commonwealth could make to the common task. The suggestion had been generally welcomed, said Mr. Fraser, and Canada, Australia, and South Africa were each arranging to send a Cabinet Minister to London. The British Government felt confident that it would benefit greatly from the fuller knowledge which it would gain of the problems and plans of the Dominion Governments, and believed that the Dominions would also be helped by the first-hand impressions which the Ministerial representative would form and by the full report which he would bring back with him. Necessarily Brief The New Zealand Government shared these views and had decided to send a Minister to London for this purpose as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Mr. Fraser added that the conference would necessarily be brief, and the Minister from New Zealand would have to travel by the quickest means possible. The mind of the British and other Empire Governments would be made plain at the conference. Mr. W. J. Poison (Nat., Stratford): Which boat are you catching? Mr. Fraser: It may be a question of travelling by air. Mr. C. A. Wilkinson (Ind., Egmont): Have you decided which Minister, should go? Mr. Fraser: No. Mr. A. E. Jull (Nat., Waipawa): I hope you go yourself.