FOREIGN POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1938, Page 7

FOREIGN POLICY

ATTITUDE OF NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT DISAGREEMENT ON CERTAIN PHASES i STATEMENT BY MR SAVAGE By Telegraph.—Press Association. WELLINGTON This Day. “Mr MacDonald's reply does not altogether state the facts—that is, if he has been correctly reported,” said the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon M. J. Savage, in referring in an interview last evening to a statement by the Secretary of State for the Dominions, Mr Malcolm MacDonald, in the House of Commons on New Zealand’s attitude to British foreign policy. “Mr. MacDonald’s reply,” the Prime Minister added, “does not accurately state the attitude of New Zealand toward foreign policy. We have disagreed with certain phases of British foreign policy, but we have never allowed those differences of opinion to divide the British Commonwealth of Nations.”

Mr Savage said that in these days everything was turned into politics, whether it was superannuation or foreign policy or anything else. “We have got to see that political opinions are not allowed to force us apart,” he observed.

Mr Savage stated that the New Zealand government was communicating with the British Government to find out whether Mr MacDonald had been correctly reported.

A Press Association cablegram from London, dated April 12, read:—

“Replying to a question in the House of Commons by Mr G. Le M. Mander (Liberal, East Wolverhampton), Mr MacDonald said: “I can assure Mr Mander that no communications have been received from the Government of New Zealand or from any other Dominion expressing disagreement with British foreign policy.” “Mr Mander: “Isn’t it well known that New Zealand has been out of sympathy ” “The remainder of the sentence was drowned by jeers and cries of ‘Shame!’ ” INTEREST IN LONDON. MR MACDONALD QUESTIONED. (Recd This Day, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 13. Mr Savage’s statement that the reference of Mr MacDonald in the House of Commons on April 12, when replying to Mr. Mander’s question about New Zealand’s foreign policy, “did not altogether state the facts” is given wide prominence. Mr Arthur Henderson will ask Mr MacDonald in the House of Commons tomorrow “whether he is aware of Mr Savage’s statement disagreeing with Mr MacDonald’s statement in the House of Commons on April 12 and whether he has any statement to make.”