Imaginative Charity

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31017, 24 March 1966, Page 12

Imaginative Charity

The proposal to establish a golden jubilee fund to be spent on charitable objects in South-east Asia does the Returned Services’ Association credit. The proposal does not specify how the fund should be spent but lists a number of ways in which help could be given. These include sponsoring medical, surgical, and dental teams, the provision of artificial limbs, sponsoring teachers for children in former servicemen’s settlements, or co-operating with other organisations such as C.0.R.5.0., the Red Cross, or the Freedom from Hunger Campaign. The R.S.A. might also consider sponsoring the formation of organisations such as Heritage, which has done so much in this country for the children of dead servicemen. At this stage it is premature to discuss the form the aid should take: it is more important that R.S.A. branches and members throughout the country should consider whether they are prepared to shoulder this new burden.

When the proposal comes before the Dominion council of the association in June the council will need to consider alternative projects in the light of the financial and other resources available. But before discussing these it must decide whether to commit its members to a radical departure from established policy. It would, no doubt, be difficult to justify the proposal by reference to the association’s constitution. But most members of the association did not question 50 years ago or 25 years ago, that it was New Zealand’s duty—and their duty—to serve their country overseas. The R.S.A. will achieve a new status if it responds to this challenge—a challenge just as important as the calls to arms which aroused its members as young men.