IMPERIAL SOLDIERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18234, 1 November 1933, Page 6

IMPERIAL SOLDIERS

DISTRESSED VETERANS WELLINGTON PROPOSAL RED CROSS HELP INVOKED With a general agreement on the point that the economic pressure is causing many veterans of the Great War to leel l.ieir disabilities more acutely, and that |lic effects of the pressure are both moral and physical, the Wellington War Relief Association is faced with a position similar to that of the Gisborne Citizens’ Defence Committee. The money at its disposal is insufficient to meet all claims on the sick and wounded soldiers’ fund adequately, and the. care of men who cannot prove injury or invalidism can only he undertaken as long as the National War Funds Council is able to make grams for the purpose. The Wellington W.R.A. is in a better situation with regard to the corpus of its funds than is the Gisborne C.D.C. In the latter case the corpus of the funds was invested in broad acres, and the investments have turned out most unsatisfactorily. so far as maintenance of income as well as the security of capital is concerned. Tin* Wellington relief association has funds of more than £IB,OOO in hand, and can face the. present rate of expenditure lor another eight or ten yea is, whereas the Gisborne expenditure is being financed by the National War Funds Council, which has advanced sufficient to cover the current year’s expenditure, in the hope that it will be recouped from future returns from the C.P.C, investments.

It is generally recognised that a considerable portion of the Gisborne patriotic fund has been lost in broadacres mortgages, and that even with expenditure cut to the hone, the fund cannot carry on for many years unless things brighten up very materially. One proposal of general interest advanced by the Wellington W.R.A., in connection with the, pressing question ot relief of distress among British Army and Navy veterans, is that the Red Cross Society of New Zealand should he asked to assist. It was stated at a meeting of the W.R.A. executive held on Monday that this society has investments and assets worth something like £130.000. comprising money collected for the aid of soldiers in various parts of the British Empire. Such a fund could give great assistance in the relief of distress among Imperial veterans,' for whom nothing is forthcoming from Britain in the form of relief grants. It was agreed by the Wellington association that the Red Cross Society and Order of St. John be invited to co-operate in the relief of dis tress, among veterans of British units.