JUSTIFIABLE HOARDING

NZ Truth, Issue 1272, 17 April 1930, Page 1

JUSTIFIABLE HOARDING

Why Canteen Funds Board Holds Over £200,000 FOR EX-SOLDIERS' RAINY DAYS

Veterans of a country 's wars deserve the best that its citizens can give, but public memory is all • too short. In the past there have been many veterans whose need has been great, but who have been given grudging help from the public purse. A long-distance view must be taken of the subject, as is instanced .by the fact that m recent years veterans of the Crimea have sought- relief m New-Zealand. • ; " ■ : 'y* ■ The policy of the Canteen and Regimental Funds Trust Board has been soundly framed to' meet the veterans' rainy days.

FULLY representative of the men who served overseas m the Great War, the members of the board.

administer a fund which has reached the useful total of £203,000 and which, if allowed to accumulate, will grow to the half -million mark before any substantial charges are made against it. The board ha's often been suspected of hoarding its funds. And it is hoarding, the funds, but for a definite purpose — the good of the returned men.' Set up by Regimental Order m January, 1919, the board was first composed of senior officers and "brass hats" and charged with administering the canteen funds for the benefit of the men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces during the demobilisation period. Carefully devised and complicated machinery was set In motion 1 to wind up the canteens and provide for each unit obtaining its Bhare of profits, and as the demobilisation proceeded, the various units went out of . existence, handing over their regimental funds to, the board's care on, condition that 'it should commission and publish [regi-, mental histories on return to New Zealand. '.. , • i ; : .; At first the fund stood at '£71,000, being formed from canteen profits m Egypt, France, Samoa v and Great Britain, and being augmented by a substantial contribution from British Expeditionary Force canteens run m areas where our troops were operating. This payment totalled over £18,000., ■ Soon afterwards the fund was given another considerable leg-up, by the British Government, for an additional £59,000 was handed over to 'it, and the Canteen Funds ,Board „presjde.d over, a sum which had .grown to >£ 149,000..'

While the board was arranging investment of this money m New Zealand, pending decision as to the future policy of disposal of the fund, a bombshell arrived from the world-famed jurist, Sir John Salmond, then Solicitor-General, who pointed out that as there was no longer any Expeditionary Force the board could not dispose of the money for the purposes which had been- laid down, and that the £149,000, m effect, was part of the public funds. It was to overcome this that legislation was included m the Finance Act of 1920, empowering the Minister of Defence power to appoint a board to receive this money, and he appointed such a board a few months later. PRIVATE FUNDS As time goes on exhaustion of the various private ' funds raised for war purposes, and now devoted to relief,, is certain. With the disappearance of this money, the soldier and his family ■will - have* only r two ; sources of '.relief left to him— the, Government and the Canteen. SJunds iTrust Board; If >this prudent, far-seeing policy had not been a.dppted 1 ; he wo\ild ; have ha.d >to s turn: to the State,' with little prospect .of relief .'from' the; regulation-bound officialdom. " ■ Difficulties and .unfortunate -cases have already made their appearance" m sufficient numbers to warrant the appointment of the.recent Ex-Soldiers' Rehabilitation Commission .by -the Government, at the request of the returned men. . ;* More will followj with jess chance of official relief, as the years go •' by. For this 'the' board- is paring, with .its money ' canhily invested ,iri\ local * body, securities, . /Government, bonds and firstmortgage securities, which have earned £84,000 interest to date. ;' A total of £14,000, was spent on the regimental histories ' which- they were committed to publish, nearly £6000 being returned by sales. r - To subsidise the Trentham Scholarship Fund, formed to educate the children of dead and disabled soldiers, the board paid out £ 10,000 without which the objects of the fund' must have been abandoned. In the last three years it has paid over £11,500 to the New Zealand R.S.A., which has disposed of the money to. local bodies for the employment of returned men who were seeking jobs on relief works. This money has carried a £1 for £1 subsidy from local bodies and public funds. Thus the charge of undue hoarding is not justified, and even if It were the money is being accumulated for a definite and praiseworthy end.