PATRIOTIC FUNDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 42, 18 August 1941, Page 9

PATRIOTIC FUNDS

WORK OF THE BOARD

COLLECTIVE COMFORTS

POLICY

Its policy of providing for the members of the New Zealand Forces collectively rather than individually was reaffirmed by the National Patriotic Fund Board at a meeting this week, when complaints received from some members of the Second N.Z.E.F. who have returned to the Dominion of the non-receipjt of patriotic comforts were discussed. His Excellency the GovernorGeneral, Sir Cyril Newall, presided, and after the meeting the secretary, Mr. G. A. Hayden, gave an outline of some of the board's activities on behalf of the members of the fighting services.

Mr. Hayden said that, except for the quarterly gift parcels and woollen goods, which were supplied by the people of the Dominion through thej provincial patriotic councils, the board i had not undertaken to forward in- j dividual comforts. It had sent some j consignments of apples, and when the opportunity offered this would be repeated. The mobile canteens which had been presented to improve the services already available to the New Zealand Forces in the Middle East were being shipped by the board, whose aim was to see that the greatest good was done for the greatest number. To assist in the fulfilment of this objective various organisations had been appointed as the board's agents, and they were doing great work. At the same time they were financed from the funds the board had been provided with by the people of the Dominion. HUTS AND CLUBS. Among the work done by the board Mr. Hayden mentioned the following:— Provision and maintenance of the in stitutional huts at the camps throughout New Zealand and at the bases overseas; the provision of band instruments, and the establishment of the New Zealand Forces Clubs in London. Cairo, and in Fiji. Other clubs catering for the New Zealanders in the Middle East had been subsidised by the board, he continued. Funds had been given to assist in the entertainment of the New Zealanders at the ports of call and substantial funds had been sent to the board's representatives overseas for emergency purposes. From these latter fund? also the regimental funds had been subsidised, and the board considered that this was the best way of getting individual connforts to the men.

The board, said Mr. Hayden, was also meeting the establishment costs of the "N.Z.E.F. Times," which was now being published- in the Middle East for the benefit of the New Zealand Forces. Apart from the budget of New Zealand news with which this paper was provided through the office of the Director of Publicity, recent copies of the paper contained articles by the board's commissioner, Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, dealing with the board's activities, and this, it was felt, would go a long way in the direction of dispelling the ignorance that obviously existed in the case of some of the men overseas as to how the patriotic funds were being applied.