Professor Abroad

Salient apologises for the delay in publishing this interview. It was mislaid after our reporter handed it in for publication.

Professor F. W. Holmes, Professor of Economics at Victoria University and Chairman of the Monetary and Economic Council, recently returned to New Zealand after spending ten months overseas.

Professor Holmes spent 7½ months in the United States, and also visited Delhi, Paris, London, Brussels, The Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Ottawa during his trip around the world. He made this trip with the assistance of a Fulbright Research Scholarship.

While in London he attended the Commonwealth Universities Conference. Delegates came mainly from Commonwealth countries, but delegations also came from the United States and some European countries. The conference dealt with many important administrative and academic problems.

In America he attended a special orientation course for visiting Fulbright teachers and professors.

Four and a half months of Professor Holmes's time in the United States were spent at Brookings, a private research institution in Washington which specialises in problems of economics, government, and foreign policy. He also spent a considerable amount of time around America—altogether, he travelled 12,000 miles by car.

During his trip overseas, Professor Holmes had three main fields of study.

1. University problems, especially of teaching economics and running economics departments.

2. Problems of economic planning and policy. He visited a number of planning institutions during his travels, and in the USA he followed up research he had done in other countries.

3. To follow up work he had done previously overseas on Britain's relationships with the Common market and how these relationships would affect New Zealand. He was particularly interested in policies Britain, the EEC and the USA were developing in the trade of temperate foodstuffs. He spent some time looking at what sort of International arrangements the big nations are likely to introduce.