SHIPWRECK RELIEF SOCIETY CRITICISED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1908, Page 2

SHIPWRECK RELIEF SOCIETY CRITICISED.

THE DUNDONALD'S SURVIVORS. [btc tkleobaph. — rr.Esa association.] CHRISTCHURCH, 27th January. An echo from the wreck of Ihe barque Dundonald was heard at the meeting of, the > Board of Governors of Canterbury College to-day. The vessel was wrecked on Disappointment Island, one of the Aucklands, on 7th March, 1907, and the survivors were found by tho members of the sub-An-tarctic expedition and brought to the Bluff on 30th November last. Much interest centred around the rough coracle in which tho survivors transported themselves from Disappointment Island to the- main island of the group, and it was in connection with tKe proceeds of the exhibitions of this wonderful craft that the chairman of tho Board j (Mr. Q. W. Russell) made a somewhat j startling statement to-day. The chair- j man said the coracle had been exhibited j at Dunedin, under the auspices of the ' Now Zealand Shipwreck Relief Society, at the request of the Mayor (Mr. Lou- ! den), who stated that any money raised would be subsidised .-01 for JDI by the j Governmsnt. Tho exhibition at Timaru ! was on the same lines, and a total of I £30 11s 4d was raised. Ho failed to get a reply from the society when ho asked if, the survivors wouid benefit by the Government subsidy ; but the Mayor of Dunedin had informed him that, a?ter paying expenses, £18 7s lOd was handed over to the society, which proposed to divide tho amount amongst the survivors, and that any unclaimed balance remain in the funds of the society. It was also decided that tho amount collected in Christchurch should be forwarded. All that appeared to have been dono by the society, tho chairman said, was that the cost of the clothes Fupplied by tho society had been paid out of the proceeds of tho exhibition, and that what wae to be don© was to give their share to those men that the society could find. Br> had written to the Mayor, stating that he felt bo dissatisfied with what tho society had done that he had sont the money collected in this city to Mr. Hutton, of the Sailors' Rest at tho Bluff, whoac energy in assisting the unfortunate mon was in a very marked contrast to what had been done by the gociety. He had received from Mr. Hutton tho European addresses of all tho survivors of. the Dundonald, and he had requested him to send to each his portion ■of the money collected in Christchurch. Mr. Russell added that ho regretted to bo compelled to criticise the society, but he felt that a society that had held money for the assistance of shipwrecked sailors for five or six weeks before meeting to consider what was to bo done with it, and called itself a shipwreck relief society, and now proposed to distribnio tho money to those of tho survivors it could reach, was one that did not deserve what Canterbury College had done for it. He regretted that, as chairman of the Board of Governors, he ever allowed the funds collected to ho handed over to the society instead of at once putting the money into the hands cf those- lor whom it was raised. 1