RED CROSS POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24369, 3 September 1942, Page 4

RED CROSS POLICY

COLLECTION OF FUNDS PRESERVING ITS STATUS The question of whether the Red Cross Society would participate in tomorrow's patriotic street day, which ' has special reference to the needs of the nursing services, was referred yesterday to the secretary of the Auckland centre of the society, Mr. A. A. Harkor. The position, said Mr. Harker, was that, while members of the society as individuals could and did energetically assist in the raising of funds under the organisation of the National Patriotic Fund Board, the Red Cross as an organisation considered that it must abstain. Rights under Convention The reason for this attitude was that, in order to preserve its rights in membership of the International Red Cross under the Geneva Convention, the societv must not assist in the collection of funds for the Red Cross in conjunction with the collection of funds for the benefit of combatant servicemen. Any other attitude would prejudice the neutral rights of the society. It had to be emphasised, said Mr. Harker, that the Hod Cross was an organisation of mercy, and that its services were available to the wounded, the sick and the distressed of every and any nation. In view of this attitude, the society was accorded special rights and protection by all belligerents, which enabled it to carry on its work where nationalistic organisations could not. Prisoners of War Service As an instance, the information service concerning New Zealand prisoners of war was entirely in the hands of the Hod Cross. Information came direct from the Red Cross in Geneva to the Ked Cross in New Zealand, although the fact that the society permitted the Government to make the first release of information migh£ obscure the fact. The Government, as a belligerent, could not do for itself what the International Red Cross could. Societies domiciled in 64 nations operated under the Geneva Convention by virtue of their nonassociation with belligerent forces. The preservation of status had recently neen the subject of grave discussions at meetings in Wellington of the society and the Joint Council of the society and the Order of St. John, Mr. Harker added, and it had been decided to seek the advice of the British Red Cross Society on the propriety of certain lines of action in which there was a_ tendency to involve the society in New Zealand.