MANAWATU DAILY TIMES. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1920. SICK AND WOUNDED FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1541, 15 April 1920, Page 4

MANAWATU DAILY TIMES. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1920. SICK AND WOUNDED FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS.

We have read very carefully the speech made to the local branch of the Returned Soldiers Association by their president, Mr B. J. Jacobs. The case was very fairly stilted from one point of view, but inasmuch as it may be calculated to give the impression that the executive of the Manawatu Patriotic Society had been In any way niggardly in its distribution of the funds entrusted to its care there remains something further to be said. The plain fact is, and nobody knows it better than Mr Jacobs, who has a seat on the executive, that the expenditure of patriotic funds by the local Society has been on a liberal scale both to soldiers and their dependents. Wherever there has been a shadow of doubt. the Society has erred on the side of generosity. Not one single case has been substantiated in which tire contrary has been shown. The Society has also striven very earnestly with the problem of a distribution of the funds. Proposals have been brought forward that a pro rata distribution of a portion of the amount in hand should be made to all the district soldiers who have served in the war. This has been resisted and turned down, not because the Society desires to retain its onerous office for ever and a day, but because the funds placed in its hands have been earmarked specilically for sick and wounded soldiers ai.d their dependents, and it is the desire of the executive that this trust should he honoured not in the breach but in the observance.

The question then arises whether a distribution should he made. The Patriotic Society has yet to be convinced, (a) that this is practicable, and (b) that it is desirable in the interests of the soldiers themselves. It has an open mind on the matter, and will of course give very earnest consideration to any representations which the R S.A. has to make. There is this further, consideration. is the matter to be regarded as a parochial question, as it has been in some other localities, or are the people of the Manawatu willing to take the wider view that if there is a surplus for the sick and wounded here, it shall be made available tor war sufferers in other parts of the country? Pending has been quoted as an example. Has the Redding- Society been farsighted and wise in distributing half of the £BOOO which it had in hand? In the light of experience and observation of the tendency of war disabilities to recur in even the appaently strong, we think not. The weakness of any distribution scheme on a pro rata basis is that it may prove injurious instead of helpful in a percentage of cases. Wherever money can he spent in medical comforts and necessities and in placing sick and wounded soldiers far beyond the reach of want, it is thoroughly justifiable. Wherever money can be spent in assisting the wounded or war worn to help themselves to establish homes or set up in businesses, the wishes of the donors should be honoured. But every penny spent in assisting the undeserving or wilfully improvident must not only injure those concerned, bvjt deplete the nestegg which is being- kept for the financially perilous days ahead. New Zealand has not jet felt the aftermath of the war. Wo hope that we shall weather the inevitable storm and ride it triumphantly; but this is no time for the free band and the open purse. Mr Jacobs does not claim that it is. Whenever he has been consulted he has given wise advice. We shall he glad of his retention in the ranks of the conservatives in this matter, although there is a hard-pulling tendency in the other direction. The sick and wounded after other wars have too often gone down in sorrow to their graves. And it is the men who have served and have suffered who must he our chief consideration now and always.