DISPOSAL OF WAR FUNDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19626, 3 May 1927, Page 8

DISPOSAL OF WAR FUNDS.

. Attention has been directed during the past few days to the policy followed in administering the various war funds still held in trust in New Zealand. From the Auckland Returned Soldiers' Association has come the suggestion that more use should be made of the. Canteen Fund, for which a special board is responsible. The question has been raised before. It was disc ussed by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association last year. This fund, a soldiers' fund in a special sense, amounts to approximately £200,000. It is being held intact at present, the idea being that it shall be utilised when all other moneys now available for relief have been exhausted. As this is not expected to happen for some 16 to 25 years, the present capital should have considerably more than doubled itself by that time. No doubt it will be very useful at that date, but there is still weight in the suggestion of the returned soldiers that some at least of the interest might be used now. No responsible person would countenance the easy disposition of the | principal sum for non-essential purposes ; j r et there must be deserving cases where a small advance would bring a great benefit. It is easy to say the patriotic funds are still available, but is there any real virtue in dividing these moneys into such distinct sections, and locking some away against so distant a future, when nobody is able to foresee what that future will be 1 The Canteen Fund Board would be wise to consider whether it cannot at present find cases of hardship, among the men on the land for instance, where it could do good, and where, in default of its action, the men concerned may never pain any benefit in that far-distant time to which it is deferring all action.