CANTEEN FUNDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 45, 22 February 1934, Page 9

CANTEEN FUNDS.

TOTAL OF £188,839. ANNUAL REPORT PRESENTED. RELIEF IN LATER YEARS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. Wednesday. The annual report and balance-sheet presented at the annual meeting of the Canteen and Regimental Trust Board to-day showed total funds at February | 2 to be £188,539, a decrease of £9371 as compared with last year. Of the total sum, £153,100 was invested, and interest earned during the year averaged £4 8/4 per cent, this lower rate being due to the operation of the New Zealand Debt Conversion Act and the Local Authorities Interest Reduction and Debt Conversion Act, 1932-33. During the year grants totalling £18,000 were made through the headquarters executive of the Returned Soldiers' Association for relief of distress causcd by unemployment among returned soldiers, distribution being made to district associations on a pro rata basis according to the numbers of unemployed ex-servicemen in the districts. These grants, it was stated, proved of great benefit in supplementing other funds being utilised by the association in promoting labour schemes and providing food and clothing in necessitous cases. The total amount distributed by the Canteen Board for relief of unemployment during the last six years was £58,685.

A final grant of £500 was made during the year to the Trenthani Scholarship Fund to assist in the education of children of deceased and disabled soldiers, making a total paid for this purpose since 1925 of £12,979. It was explained that the Canteen Board's policy was to preserve the canteen funds as far as possible for relief purposes in later years, when other patriotic and war relief funds bceome exhausted, but urgent and pressing needs of unemployment among ex-ser-vicemen brought about by the economic conditions of recent years had caused it to relax this policy to some extent. The board was hopeful, however, that an improvement of conditions in the near future would enable it to ensure that there was an ample fund available when the time arrived to meet the demands of men who prematurely broke down in health anl earning capacity through the stress of war service. From expert medical opinions obtained, the need was expected to be greatest during the decade commencing about 1940.