RED CROSS EXPENSES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 883, 8 December 1916, Page 10

RED CROSS EXPENSES.

AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT. THE SECRETARY'S SALARY, j At ihe meeting of the executive of, the tied Cross Fund ;i letter was received from Mr A. S. Clarkson, pre-! sident of the Canterbury Automobile | Association, with reference to the salary of the secretary of the fund. | The reply drawn up by the chairman; and deputy-chairman, dated Decern-j her (i, is as follows: — Sir, —Your letter of December 2 to, the chairman of "Our Day" Executive was duly considered at a meeting of the executive, and we have been requested by the executive to reply thereto.

In order thai your association may fully understand the position it becomes necessary for us to state that the secretary of the lied Cross Executive has been acting as such since: March, 1915. lor the first three; months of that period he was paid I the sum of £2 per week and subsequently to the end of October last £3 per week. The amounts so paid were not sufficient to cover the! amount expended by the secretary: for additional assistance, clerical and otherwise, engaged to carry out the; ordinary work of the executive, and 1 the extra work in connection with; the various special appeals put forth j by it for French Red Cross Day, i "Our Day," and other objects. When | the matter was gone into by a small| sub-committee, it was found that I the secretary was £25 out of pocket j with no allowance for his personal! services. As his time was so fully] occupied by Red Cross Work, and; his opportunities for private work so, largely curtailed, it was felt that it was not just or right that this con-, dition of affairs should be allowed to I continue. The executive therefore! decided on the recommendation of the sub-committee to vote the secretary j the sum of £l5O to cover what he j was out of pocket (£25), leaving £125 I as an honorarium for his personal I services for a period of twenty j months. When one remembers the growth of Red Cross work in the I Canterbury district, which covers the provincial districts of Canter-1 bury, Nelson, Marlborough and ' Westland, some idea of the volume of j work involved will be obtained. There are about 150 branches to be kept in touch with. If anyone were j to peruse a list of the multifarious l duties connected with the secretary's department, he would be amazed to learn what inroads on his time are made. In addition to the executive, his services are at the call of the Ladies' Depot, the Cathedral Square shop, and the various committees, both city and country, set up from time to time. Under the circumstances, your association, which has some knowledge of the duties devolving on a secretary, and which pays a substantial honorarium for this class of work, will be the first to admit that the sum of £125 is by no means adequate remuneration for the personal services of the secretary to the Red Cross Executive for the I period of twenty months named. We ought to mention that our ex- J ecutive voted practically the whole of its General Fund, £3500 to the "Our Day" Fund. Whilst £125, part of the sum of £l5O voted as previously stated, has been charged j against the "Our Day" effort, it is practically a charge against the! General Fund. The total amount ; raised and remitted for "Our Day" I to date is £16,434 13/7, the total ex-1

penses on that account lo date (including the amount voted to Ihe secretary, £150) have been £231 10/9, less than H per cent. The information at our disposal leads us to believe that the secretary's personal income is not more than two-thirds of what it was before he took up Red Cross work, and financially it would have been better for him to have left Red Cross work alone and subscribed ill per week towards its funds. In view of the publicity the discussion at the meeting of your committee has received, we trust, if this explanation is satisfactory, that your association will, so far as it is able, put matters right, so that all misapprehensions may be removed and neither the individual concerned nor the sacred cause .in whose interests we are working be prejudiced.— Yours faithfully, A. E. G. RHODES, Chairman. J. A. FLESHER, Deputy-Chairman.