HOW MUCH TO GIVE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 18 November 1940, Page 4

HOW MUCH TO GIVE

PATRIOTIC FUND APPEAL ORGANISER’S HINT “Is it too much to ask every worker in New Zealand to give two days’ pay to the patriotic funds?” asked Mr J. Abel, hon. Dominion organiser of the current £1,000,000 patriotic fund appeal, at Wellington, when urging universal support for the campaign. “We are in New Zealand have not yet been touched by the war.” Mr Abel went on. “So far, our security and our economic status have remained absolutely unimpaired, and practically no demands have been made upon our personal resources to help the men who are overseas doing the real job of winning the war. “We know that there are thousands of people in the country who are ready and eager to give and give generously in this best of all causes, and our organisation of the campaign throughout the various provincial patriotic council? is designed to give them that opportunity. “There are many others who have not yet fully realised their responsibilities. Our soldiers are the front-line of the nation’s war effort, and we are expected to form the second line of defence, or the home front; and unless we carry cut these functions faithfully and efficiently we are simply letting our country down. “The question has been asked: ‘How much should we give?’ After careful consideration this can be simply answered. In New Zealand to-day the wage and salary bill is in the vicinity of £10,000.000 a month. If we calculate or the basis of a 40-hour week, we can readily see that in order to gain our objective we need only two daVs’ pay from every wage and salary earner in New Zealand. Two days’ pay from everyone will give us our million. I say unhesitatingly that it is little enough to ask, and I do not think there is a person in New Zealand who can justifiably refuse this small request.” “Let our motto be:

“GIVE TWO DAYS’ PAY EACH, AND THE MILLION WE LL REACH."

He did not pretend, he added, that everyone would find the two day’s pay in one sum. but he suggested that it could easily be spread over the whole period of the appeal or in whateved way it was found easiest to manage. The basis of the idea was that salaries and wages to-day, from the highest manager and director to the lowest paid boy and girl, represented approximately £500.000 a day, and if everyone did their bit the goal of the million pounds would soon be in sight.