INUNDATED WITH APPEALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16705, 24 July 1928, Page 4

INUNDATED WITH APPEALS

DONOR OF £1,000,000 NAVAL COLLEGE "NOTHING MORE TO GIVE" Mr. G. S. Reade, of Auckland, through whose generosity a new naval school costing £1,000,000 is to be built in England, has written the following hitter to the Auckland Herald ai.d states that he will feel obliged if other editors throughout New Zealand will give publication to it: — "In connection with the Greenwich Naval School, a cabled notice of which was published in your issue of July 17, may 1 appeal to you in selfdefence to insert the following intimation ? '''Since this notice appeared I have been inundated with applications from all parts of New Zealand for assistance of one kind or another from impecunious individuals advancing impossible claims for aid or relief, brokers offering alluring mediums of investment, also gentlemen bringing to my notice some very worthy causes for monetary assistance. For these latter I desire to express my heartfelt sympathy and regret that it is impossible for me to aid the causes they have so much at heart. Doubtless, also, there are genuine, cases for aid among the humbler and distressed applicants, and this brings me to my point and an appeal to the commonsense of all would-be applicants. It is an axiom that one cannot eat one's cake and possess it too. Having given all my substance on 'bequest, and property also, 1 have nothing more to give. lam like the man in the street who has to live within his income and see that lie does not exceed it. This is no new experience to me. Ever since the bequest was promised following the gift of the property, now some nine years since, I have considered myself a trustee of the trust created on behalf of the bequest and exercised thrift, limiting my annual expenditure to £IOOO, all in excess of which I considered the property of trust. I mention this in explanation of how it is I am not in a position to help all and sundry who write for assistance without a knowledge of the circumstances.

"At long last a cablegram has come to hand only this morning (Saturday) from Mr. A. W. Smallwood, 0.8.8., Director of Greenwich and a member of the Admiralty Board, stating that a contract for the school has been signed.''