BRITISH LEGION.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19724, 14 September 1929, Page 18

BRITISH LEGION.

PRESIDENT'S APPEAL. NATION'S DEBT TO EX-SERVICE MEN. (raon oca own cobsespondent.) LONDON, August 9. On the 15th anniversary of the entry of Great Britain into the war Earl Jellicoe (on behalf of the British Legion) published an appeal for increased assistance to enable it to find employment for ex-Service men here and overseas. "The claim on the funds of tne Legion grow instead of diminishing," he says. The plan is to help the men to help themselves. Lord Jellicoe divides the kinds of relief under three heads. Some of the men are assisted to find employment in the Dominions; others are assisted with small grants of capital to set up in business for themselves; and, finally, the central organisation itself acts as employer in its poppy factory, its Cambrian tweed factory (which is successfully popularising Welsh tweeds), its village settlement at Preston Hall, and so on. This kind of relief is naturally administered centrally, and it is the central fund of the Legion which is feeling the strain. By the terms of the appeal 85 per cent, of the proceeds of "Poppy Day" is returnable to the localities in which the money is raised for the provision of bare necessities for distressed ex-Service men. There is need of £50,000 to enable the Legion to maintain and develop its more positive work in the discovery and creation of employment. If this sum is raised a substantial portion will be earmarked for employment and migration sehemes among the ex-Service men in Southern Ireland, where distress is acute. During the last three years 1495 men (with women and children 4899) have been helped to migrate to Dominions; the Legion's employment bureau has found work for 2194. Lord Jellicoe concludes:—"Let me say as emphatically as I can that these men have every right to look to the nation for help. They are the men who did the fighting 14, 13, 12, and 11 years <igo. They are of that Army which held the gate when failure meant a calamity to every man, woman, and child in th*e nation and in the Empire, and to countless thousands then unborn. They quitted themselves like men, to the admiration of the world; friend and foe; and to the salvation of the nation. And now they need help. They look back from their present anxieties to those days when they contributed freely and generously of the wealth of their youth and strength. They made their pay ment without' denrir. Surely they are entitled to look to us to discharge our debt to them."

A special appeal is issued to women by Lady Haig, who points out that a practical way of helping is to buy the goods which are made by disabled exService men.