RETURNED SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 5

RETURNED SOLDIERS

AUCKLAND COMPLAINT

HEADQUARTERS CRITICISED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, October 31,

"The time is fast approaching when Dominion headquarters of the Returned Soldiers' Association will have to toe the line or Auckland will have to take some other action," said the president, Mr. J. W. Kendall, at the quarterly meeting of the Auckland Returned Soldiers' Association tonight. Mr. Kendall said he did not want to see a break with headquarters if it was possible to avoid it, but if the time came when co-operation was not being obtained, he would be the first to support the break. This announcement was greeted with applause. Mr. Kendall said that headquarters received 2d for every poppy sold in the Auckland Province and Is 3d put of every subscription. If all returned soldiers' organisations in the province could be welded .into a solid mass, headquarters might revise its present attitude. Headquarters had refused point-blank to take any action regarding deduction of national and social security tax from the pay of the National Military Reserve, Class 2, which was also liable for income tax, making a total deduction of 4s 9d in the £.

A further case was cited by the president, in which the Auckland association had opposed a grant of £50 by the Auckland Provincial Patriotic Council to a widow in receipt of an income of £250 a year. Headquarters had been asked for support, but had replied that the confidential minutes of any patriotic body should not be circulated among other bodies.

"This means that I am not free to report on the proceedings of the Patriotic Council on which I am the association's representative," said Mr. Kendall. "In any case, the minutes concerned were not confidential."