WAR FUNDS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 457, 28 July 1915, Page 9

WAR FUNDS.

CONFERENCE AT WELLINGTON. Press Association. WELLINGTON, July 27. A Provincial Conference of delegates of committees interested in administration of war relief funds was held to-day, the Mayor of Wellington (Mr J. P. Luke) presiding. The suggested scheme for the administration of the funds was outlined in a detailed discussion that lasted all the afternoon. The scheme, which was prepared by Mr C. P. Skerrett, K.C., is briefly that a society should be constituted and incorporated for the administration of funds within the military district of Wellington. The Association should consist exclusively of local societies for raising and administering relief funds within their respective districts, such societies to be constituted and incorporated as branch societies of the association. The objects of the association should be to control and regulate the administration of the funds to some uniform scheme, to be determined to the executive committee of the Association, for the relief and benefit of New Zealand soldiers and their dependents, and, as far as possible, to spread such relief equitably and uniformly over the whole district without reference to locality or to the amount of money raised for the purposes of the fund in each district. Other objects of the Association would be to adopt means to prevent the improper exploitation of the funds of branches and to assign applications for relief from the funds to the branches which could most conveniently deal with them. Another object would be to promote the creation of a national fund throughout the Dominion, either by pooling the funds of all branches or other organisations, or by organising and amalgamating with a national organisation having for its object the administration throughout the Dominion of war relief funds and other moneys devoted to similar purposes. Among the proposed objects of the branches were included the establishment and the maintenance of employment bureaux for returned soldiers and sailors, and the subsidising of any hospital or charitable institution in which any wounded or incapacitated soldier or sailor may be maintained. It was also provided that any branch might agree by its rules that contributions out of its fund not exceeding 25 per cent, thereof may be made to any branch of the St. John Society in New Zealand, or to any guilds or committees whose members are working for the benefit of any hospital for New Zealand soldiers and sailors. The suggested basis for the establishment of a national scheme was put forward by the Wairarapa delegate. The suggestion was embodied in a recommendation that the military district of Wellington (comprising the Wellington, Taranaki, and Hawke's Bay land districts) be divided for the convenience of collecting and distributing funds in aid of the wounded soldiers into ten areas (enumerated), to be called Patriotic Fund Districts.