CABINET DUTIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1941, Page 4

CABINET DUTIES

SOME READJUSTMENTS NECESSARY ALLOCATION OF MR NASH’S PORTFOLIOS. MR SULLIVAN MAY TAKE OVER FINANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. With the appointment of the Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, as New Zealand’s first Minister to Washington, there is much interest as to what, arrangements are to be made for the administration of his portfolios, more particularly finance, during his absence from the Dominion. Mr Nash will take up his new post as a member of the New Zealand War Cabinet, and he will retain his seat in the House of Representatives as member of Parliament for the Hutt electorate. The Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, stated yesterday that if legislation were necessary to enable Mr Nash to do this it would be submitted to Parliament. Mr Nash's appointment is for no fixed term, and his stay in the United States of America will be guided largely by circumstances. Portfolios held by Mr Nash in addition to Finance are Customs and Stamp Duties, and he is also Minister in charge of the Land and Income Tax, Public Service Superannuation and the Census and Statistics Departments. Ministerial responsibility for the administration of these portfolios and departments will have to be reallocated. Whenever Mr Nash has been absent from the Dominion in the past the portfolio of Finance has been administered by Mr Fraser, both before and after he assumed the office of Prime Minister. It is thought unlikely that in existing circumstances Mr Fraser will add to his administrative burdens by taking an additional portfolio. There are suggestions that the Minister of Supply, Mr Sullivan, may take over Finance and may be relieved of some of his present responsibilities. No arrangements have yet been made as to the officials to accompany Mr Nash. Though she may not leave at the same time as her husband, Mrs Nash will later join him in Washington. WAR & TRADE PROBLEMS. The importance of Mr Nash’s mission was referred to by the Prime Minister yesterday. “With the Pacific as a major theatre of war the appointment of a New Zealand Minister to Washington may be regarded as of outstanding front-rank importance to the Dominion,” said Mr Fraser. “The imperative need of the English-speak-ing peoples to pool completely their resources to ensure victory in the Pacific as well as in the Atlantic, has never been greater. The United States, as the major Power in the Pacific, and the major productive area, is obviously the most suitable point from which munitions and other war supplies can be most easily directed. “In addition to the question of strategy and the co-ordination of policies in connection with the war effort, there is also the point’ of utilising the productive facilities of all the countries and placing their products at the point where they will be most effective in the prosecution of the war. There will also be trade problems. Negotiations with the United States have been pro-’ ceeding during the past three or six months for a trade agreement with New Zealand, and they must obviously be completed.” NEED OF UNDERSTANDING. The Prime Minister stressed the need to ensure, in the United States, a complete understanding of the viewpoint of the British Dominions in the Pacific, and their feeling in regard to their relations with the United Kingdom. “This,”- he said, “is more necessary today than ever.before. It might be that New Zealand, through its Minister, can help to interpret Britain to the United States better than Britain could interpret itself. “Good spade-work has been done by Mr Langstone, who is at present representing New Zealand at the various conferences with the Prime Minister of Great Britain in Washington, and by Mr Coates, Avho went there on a special war mission,” said Mr Fraser. “During my trip abroad I also discussed matters with the President and representative Ministers and Secretaries of State, and with the Canadian Government.” The Prime Minister said that Mr Nash, having been so closely immersed in New Zealand’s immediate Avar problems, and those of the future, was reluctant to leave, but after having served New Zealand in Washington, he could look forward to the time Avhen he Avould be able to return with a fuller knowledge of the outlook of the United States and its relations to the British Commonwealth,, and particularly New Zealand.