RECEIVED AT PALACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1943, Page 4

RECEIVED AT PALACE

AND IN THE EAST END OF LONDON DOMINION POLITICIANS. DINNER AT BETHNAL GREEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.42 a.m.) LONDON, May 12. Members of the Australian and New Zealand Parliamentary delegation who are seeing Britain under war conditions went direct from Buckingham Palace to the kitchen of a British restaurant in Bethnal Green, the heart of London’s East End. Their Majesties and also the Princesses, received the delegation at the Palace, where Mr S. M. Bruce (Australian High Commissioner) and Mr W. J. Jordan (New Zealand High Commissioner) introduced each member. Many questions their Majesties and the Princesses asked about Australia and New Zealand were answered. Mr Watkins, leader of the Australian delegation, and Mr L. G. Lowry (New Zealand) said their Majesties recalled their tour of New Zealand and Australia and asked what had become of a number of personalities they then met. Senator Armstrong told their Majesties how much Australia and New Zealand would like to see them again and suggested that they and the Princesses should make a “victory tour.”

Mr Jordan and Sir Drummond Shiels took the party to Bethnal Green, where Lord Latham, leader of the London County Council, explained that the local authorities had established chains of restaurants in order to reinforce the country’s catering facilities . The London County Council conducted 258 such restaurants, -where many thousands of people were enabled to procure a well-balanced midday meal at a very reasonable cost. The New Zealand and Australian delegates ate the same meal as hundreds of East enders —roast beef, potatoes and cabbage, with plums and rice, plus a cup of tea. The delegates did not pay 15d like the East enders. queue for their food or deposit dirty dishes in the right place after eating, but they saw the East enders "doing it.