NAVY LEAGUE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3398, 30 April 1919, Page 25

NAVY LEAGUE.

OTAGO BRANCH. From the annual report of the Otago branch of the Navy League we tak.e the following: The secretary's report states that the ordinary revenue from, membership subscriptions (£646 15s) and gifts, etc' (£22 Is sd), and including interest on the deposit totalled £683 12s 9d, and the expenditure £773 14s lOd. The adult members' roll has been well maintained, whilst that for the schools is the most numerous so far enrolled. The school members' roll for 1918-19 is the highest on record. It is a number "(5252) that speaks, as hardly anything else could speak, for the loyalty and enthusiasm of the Otago school children in all that concerns the navy. Strictly speaking, the school membership was easily 5500 on March 31 of this year, but owing to printing exigencies it was not possible to amend all the returns in harmony with those last received from, several large town schools. The school essays again proved a successful and popular form of educational work. No less than 4300 essays (compared with 4173 last year) were written, of which 692 were sent in to the examiner (Rev. W. Saunders), who was well pleased with their general, and, in several instances, exceptional excellence. Upwards of 400 prizes were distributed by the branch throughout the schools of Otago. Early in the year, in response to the Ladies' Emergency Committee of the Navy League, this branch sent from its funds the sum of £54 12s, being the estimated cost of maintenance for a. year for one British seaman who had the ill fortune to be a prisoner of war in Germany ; and subsequently subscribed from the same source the sum of £SO in answer to an appeal from the British and Foreign Seamen's Society. The Ladies' Committee also collected and forwarded the sum of £145 -9s to the Ladies' Emergency Committee. London, on behalf of the British Seamen Prisoners in Germany Fund.