AUSTRALIA'S GENEROSITY

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 82, 5 October 1915, Page 8

AUSTRALIA'S GENEROSITY

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WAR ' FUNDS. (FEOII OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 30th September. One of the indications of the settling down of people here to a long pull, and a strong pull together with all the other parts of. the Empire is to be found in the present discussion as to the best means of handling the huge sums of money which Australians have subscribed with fine generosity to patriotic and war relief funds. The very magnitude of,the sums contributed seems to be a source of difficulty. The honorary officials of the various funds, mostly,, business persons who have their own affairs to attend to, find themselves obliged to deal with most extensive tasks if they are duly concerned about attention' to details which is necessary if justice is to be done to subscribers "and to those who make claims for relief and assistance. Complaints are made on the one hand of improper delay in affording relief to persons for whose benefit the public has given so generously, " and on the other hand of the ease with which impostors have been able to get money from different funds in turn. / In New South Wales alone the public contributions to the principal patriotic and war relief funds^of whicn records are printed in the newspapers amount to £1,900,000. There are many smaller funds, which easily nfake up a total of two millions for one State. A suggestion which is meeting with' favourable expressions is that the principal funds with cognate objects, and covering between a million and a million and ahalf of public contributions, should be put under the immediate direction of a competent man of business, who would be paid to devote the whole' of his time to so arranging and directing matters as 1 to ensure that what ought to be donb with the money is done expeditiously and justly.