NEARLY HALF-WAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 13

NEARLY HALF-WAY

£1,000,000 APPEAL

MORE THAN £400,000 RAISED

HAWKE'S BAY'S FINE

EFFORT

"With well over £400,000 in hand, we can now say that the half-million is in sight," stated Mr. J, Abel, honorary Dominion organiser of the £1,000,000 all-purposes patriotic appeal, today. The total in hand is given as £410,570.

In the majority of cases, Mr. Abel said, the figures given this week showed the amounts actually received up to the time of making the reports, and as the campaign had slackened up with the approach of Christmas, they were in some instances hot complete.

The amounts for the various zones are:—Auckland, £113,900; Canterbury, £74,000; Otago, £63,500; Wellington (provincial), £57,070; Hawke's Bay, £37,000; -East Coast, £24,000; Southland, £14,500; Nelson, £9500; Taranaki, £8100; Westland, £4900; Marlborough, £4100.

Although all reports in Wellington are not up to date, the figures are given as ' follows: —Palmerston North-Kai-ranga, £13,600; Wairarapa, £10,800; Wanganui, £5500; Wellington Province total, including metropolitan all-pur-poses, and excluding Palmerston North, Wanganui, and Wairarapa, £10,500; Wellington provincial United Kingdom relief, £16,670. The high light of the past two weeks, Mr. Abel said, was undoubtedly the effort of Southern Hawke> Bay, one of the smaller zones, where £12,008 had been raised against a quota of £8000. This had resulted from a queen contest between Dannevirke and Woodville, the former town having raised £8468 and Woodville £3540. The contributions represented more than £1 6s per head of population and more than £6 for every household in the borough and county. It was all the more remarkable when- it was considered that no individual donation exceeded £25, showing a splendid community effort on behalf of the appeal.

Last week Mr. Abel attended the coronation ceremony at the Waikato queen carnival, where £44,000 out of a total quota of £45,000 had been raised in a little more than a month. Great credit was due to the farming community in that district, he said, for raising considerable sums . through stock drives.

Mr. Abel said that the prospects for the new year were bright, as two of the major zones had not yet got properly under way. Wellington was laying plans for a monster, queen carnival to commence towards the end of January, and the scheme was being taken up with great enthusiasm, leading the promoters to look forward confidently to the attainment of Wellington's quota of £100,000.

In Auckland a carnival of a different and unique nature was being planned, to include ail sections of the community. This was timed to start about April l,:and from the way the voluntary workers were throwing themselves into the task, Auckland Metropolitan should have little difficulty in reaching its quota of £127,000.

With the present figures in hand, therefore, and these efforts under way, the best part of £650,000 would be within reach.

Nelson would return strongly to the campaign with a carnival in the new year.

In, addition to these amounts, considerable sums of money would be coming in about Easter from various art unions now in progress, and the New Zealand tour of Mr. Noel Coward was expected to net a further substantial sum.

Mr. Abel said there would be no further Dominion survey of the appeal until the end of January.