BUSY TIME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1942, Page 4

BUSY TIME

SPENT BY OUR MINISTERS IN AUSTRALIA QUESTION OF SUPPLIES. NEW ZEALAND HELPFULLY MET. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 8. Since their arrival in Sydney on the completion of the most important discussions that have taken place in Canberra and Melbourne regarding the future conduct of the war. the New Zealand Ministers, Mr Sullivan and Mr Coates, have been busy attending to many supplementary questions relating to supplies for New Zealand. In his capacity as Minister of Supply, Mr Sullivan has been endeavouring to secure additional shipping space for carrying bulk commodities to New Zealand, particularly wheat, salt and munition material and components. These matters, said Mr Sullivan, were perhaps not as important as the major discussions that had taken place regarding the conduct of the war, but nevertheless they were of great importance to the Dominion, and Mr Sullivan expressed satisfaction with the manner in which he had been met by the Australian Government. Mr Beasley, Minister of Supply, Mr Makin, Minister of Munitions, and Mr Scully, Minister of Commerce, in their various fields, had been particularly helpful in making supplies of urgently needed commodities available to the Dominion. Mr Coates had been busy regarding schedules of goods needed by the Army, Navy and Air Force. In the present circumstances, when Australia needed so much of her own production herself, the problem of securing supplies foi’ the Dominion had been particularly difficult. Nevertheless, good progress had been made. At the final meeting in Canberra on Friday between the New Zealand representatives and Mr Curtin and the appropriate Ministers, a very happy spirit prevailed, said Mr Sullivan. Mr Curtin expressed himself as being greatly impressed with the strength of the New Zealand delegation, and the manner in which its members put the New Zealand viewpoint on the most important discussions that had ever taken place between the representatives of the two countries.

Mr Sullivan and Mr Coates on Saturday were the guests of the New Zealand branch of the Australian Returned Soldiers’ and Sailors’ League, and, responding to a toast, they told old New Zealand soldiers of the energy being put into the war effort in New Zealand and the splendid response of every citizen in the present critical situation.