VACANT CABINET SEAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1943, Page 4

VACANT CABINET SEAT

MAJOR SKINNER CHOSEN BY LABOUR CAUCUS. ANNOUNCEMENT BY MR FRASER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A unanimous selection that Major C. F. Skinner, M.C., M.P., for Motueka, be recommended for appointment to the Ministry to till the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr F. Langstone was made by the Parliamentary Labour Party at a caucus yesterday afternoon. Major Skinner, who was . recently mentioned in dispatches, is serving with the New Zealand Division in the Middle East. The decision of caucus was announced by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who said that other members who had been previously nominated had immediately withdrawn their nominations when that of Major Skinner was put forward. Before returning to New Zealand Major Skinner would be visiting the United Kingdom in accordance .with arrangements which had been made before his selection for Cabinet appointment. The Government had recently been asked by the British Ministry of Information to send some capable representative person to Britain to speak on New Zealand’s war effort both in the field and at home. Major Skinner had been offered this mission, and he had accepted. Arrangements had been made with Lieutenant-Gen-eral Sir Bernard Freyberg for the temporary release of Major Skinner from the army in the field to visit Britain. Major Skinner has been M.P. for Motueka since 1938. when he defeated Mr Holyoake. He is 43, and was educated at Parnell School and the Seddon Memorial Technical College. For some time he worked as a carpenter, and then took up farming till the depression, when he worked on the Waitaki hydro-electric scheme. He moved to Inangahua, where he was president of the miners’ medical association.