PATRIOTIC FUNDS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20619, 21 November 1941, Page 7

PATRIOTIC FUNDS

OVER £1,000,000 SPENT MINISTERS SURVEY (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. In opening the national conference of patriotic bodies, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, said the National Patriotic Fund Board had already sent £220,000 to England and some £30,000 for the relief of distress in Allied countries, and would continue to send whatever might be required. Advice from London that further grants were not called for at present should ease the minds of those who might have felt New Zealand was not doing quite enough for the people o. the United Kingdom. He said that, so far from attempting to control patriotic funds, the Government had materially helped them. Not all the funds raised had yet been spent, but over £1,000,000 had been expended, and the value of the goods given, apart from the goods purchased out of the funds, amounted in all. probability to over £500,000.

Rehabilitation in its accepted sense of the reinstatements of men and women of the fighting services into civil life fell within the province oi the Government and was a responsibility that the Government could not and did not desire to pass on to patriotic organisations.