KING GEORGE V

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 27, 31 July 1937, Page 10

KING GEORGE V

MEMORIAL FUND

MR. SAVAGE PLEASED

Gratification at the response made by the people of New Zealand to the appeal for contributions to the King George V National Memorial Fund was expressed by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in a statement issued yesterday.

"Apart from farewell functions, my la^t public act as Prime Minister before leaving for the Coronation and the Imperial Conference was my appeal to the people of New Zealand on March 22 in launching the King George the Fifth National Memorial Fund," said Mr. Savage. "Now, on my return, it is my pleasure as well as .my duty to thank, on behalf of the Government, the people of New Zealand for their magnificent response to that appeal. In fixing the formal closing date of the appeal at June 3, his late Majesty's birthday, I asked the peopla to subscribe £50,000 in just over ten weeks.

,t "Both my colleagues and I recognised the magnitude of my request. c Easter fell in the same week. For a s fortnight 01 more, it was impracticable for Mayors and other local body chair;l men and the people generally to do anything in the way of organising machinery in support of my personal request to them. They were then faced '* with that organising work at a time V when, throughout the Dominion, the thoughts and efforts of all were naturally centred on the Coronation. They £ were faced, too, with the prospect of 2 raising a fresh wave of interest in the ;> short interval of a fortnight between ] the end of Coronation week and the ; closing date of the appeal. We were I not unmindful, either, of the fact that " the appeal was being made more than ) a year after his late Majesty's death. FILLED WITH PRIDE. "For all that, .my colleagues and I felt confident of complete success. Proj' gress reports cabled to me in England ' filled me with pride in the confirmaf tion they brought of my belief that the . people of New Zealand would show to \ th : full their reverence for the memory , of a great and noble King. ; "Despite Easter and the Coronation J preparations, half the objective was , reached a week before Coronation Day. By May 22 the fund had reached a ', total of £44,000. On.May 29, £54,000 . (£4OOO beyond our objective) had been ; subscribed. The final response in the . remaining five days to the close of • June 3 was truly wonderful, another £20.000 being subscribed. And today '. the public response has reached a total of £86,293 2s. 6d. 'The result is one of which all may j fee! justly proud. To me,, who made the appeal, the most satisfying features are the facts—first, that all but a small percentage of the total has come from direct giving; second, that some hundreds of thousands of individuals have contributed: and, finally, that every section of our people has responded so well. It was our desire that the children's health camps should be the gift of the grown-ups to the children of our own and succeeding generations. Before I left I purposely did not ask the children to take i part in the appeal. I find, however, that from one end of the Dominion to ■ the other they took' the matter into ■ their own hands and played no small part in the general effort. , ME. SAVAGE'S THANKS. ; "It is impossible for me in this statement to acknowledge the indebtedness ■ of' the Government or myself personally to all the individuals and organisations to whom I, before my departure, or my colleague, the Hon. P. Fraser, ] who acted for me during my absence, l made a direct personal appeal. I shall ] take the first' possible opportunity of '. writing to each and all of them. I do. ( however, desire at this stage to ] acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude ( my indebtedness to his Excellency the 1 Governor-General, the Rt. Hon. G. W. c Forbes, my immediate, .predecessor; the t Leader of the Opposition, .the Hon. c Adam Hamilton; and .my own col- j leagues, for their whole-hearted sup- I port and co-operation, which right from the beginning set. the appeal on a r truly national basis. c

"To his Majesty King George the Sixth for his gracious approval of the fund as an object for a national appeal in lieu of. any Coronation Memorial, our loyal gratitude is due. I am sure that his Majesty will i 2 proud of the response made by his people of this Dominion, not in their grief of a year ago, but in their calm recollection today of all that his beloved father was and all that his example meant to the welfare of his people and the peace of the world.

"The very magnitude of the public response imposes a greater responsibility both on the Government and on those who will administer the fund. That responsibility will be accepted in its entirety to the end that (to repeat the final words of my appeal) 'not in brass or stone or marble, but yet in the creation of this tangible memorial of children's health camps, a form he himself would have preferred, will the name of George the Fifth be an ever living memory to the people of this far-flung outpost of the British Commonwealth of Nations which he served literally unto death.'"