Red Cross Advised To Be Prepared

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29268, 28 July 1960, Page 2

Red Cross Advised To Be Prepared

| “We are living in a devilish age, and must be prepared for whatever may happen,” said Mr M. S. Galloway, the recently retired secretary-general of the New Zealand Red Cross Society, at the annual meeting of the North Canterbury centre yesterday. “When a crisis comes, many people rush in to help, but they fade away again after it is over. The Red Cross must be active and prepared all the time,” he said.

Under the new civil defence* scheme, the part of the Red Cross was to provide instruction. “We must develop our classes in first aid and home nursing, to provide potential helpers in time of trouble,” said Mr Galloway. The possibility of nuclear warfare, as well as natural disaster, was always present During the recent tidal wave incidents, thousands of people thronged the beaches out of idle curiosity, he said. Many of them would have been useless if disaster had struck.

New Zealand was very prone to earthquakes. “We have not had a bad one for some timeEvery time I feel one now in Wellington, I wonder whether this will be it,” said Mr Galloway. The New Zealand Red Cross Society had come into its own in the Napier earthquake. The peace-time programme was first enunciated in 1919, when Mr Galloway assisted in forming a sub-committee of the war-time organisation. The sub-committee was reconstituted in 1931 to become the New Zealand Red Cross Society. “We have advanced greatly from those small beginnings,” said Mr

Galloway. “We now have the confidence of the people and of the Government. Practically all relief work is now channelled through the Red Cross.”

Through the international Red Cross, thousands of people were helping distressed people in every corner of the world. Vast Membership The membership of the international body was 150 million people, representing 89 countries, said Mr Galloway. “It is a privilege to belong—never try to get out of it,” he said. Red Cross was a family affair, and for many a life’s vocation.

Mr Galloway himself was secre-tary-general of the New Zealand Red Cross Society for 40 years, and his wife, children, and grand-

Children, all belong to one of the branch organisations. Mr Galloway paid tribute to the work of the voluntary aid detachment, which provided a recruiting field for the nursing service in New Zealand, he said. Many nurses recruited from the detachment had done very weU.

The sub-centres he described as the backbone of the movement. “It is your loyalty and service that keeps us going,” he said. “If you are faithful to the cause, ways and means of helping will open up that you hardly dream of.”