PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6136, 14 September 1945, Page 4

PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES

NATIONAL FUND BOARD SERVICES The following letter written by the the chairman of the Otorohanga Patriotic Zone Committee to the Otorohanga Times is applicable to Te Awamutu, who has still £2OOO to raise to fulfil its obligations in respect to the 1945 Appeal. With the fighting done and the brief period of exaltation over, most of us find ourselves preoccupied with the everyday business of securing our future livelihood. Many, perhaps, most of us, are inclined to the premature view, that World War II is over. The Question: What is the position in regard to Otorohanga’s Quota for 1945 ? is certainly topical and perhaps inevitable. The answer is urgent and that it be widely known is essential. The war is not over of course; it is slowly and seemingly, surely, drawing to a close, but there is a lot to be done yet, before all our Servicemen and women are restored to and established in their homes amongst us here. Until then, Patirotic Services must be maintained on their present scale; in the years to follow the call on the “After Care and Welfare Fund” will inevitably be increasingly insistent. Time and circumstances will surely render its tragic roll of “delayed action” cases.

The reaction and distractions of ageing years will create for so many, a state of mind that will be unable to cope with the ordinary demands of life, placing them in a category that cannot be legislated for, but, for which Patriotic Service assistance is admirably suited. The late Right Honourable J. G. Coates in calling the country’s attention to similar cases of the last war, coined the very apt and expressive term: The “Burnt Out Soldier.” Any sacrifice we make now to establish funds to meet these future claims can never approach theirs. In the meantime, the calls on the various services funded by the National Patriotic Fund Board remain; changing only, in incidence with the changing conditions since recreation has taken the place of fighting in the life of the Servicemen overseas. Here is a list of the Board’s Expending Agents: Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army, Catholic Services, Church Army, Joint Council St. John and Red Cross, Y.W.C.A., Navy League, Overseas Seamen’s Gift Committee, Air Rorce Relations, Commercial Travellers’ Association (Blind Ex-Servicemen). Remember, Patriotic Funds provide the money, these people spend it and they ought to know. Ask any of them what their requirements are. Think of the equipment and upkeep of clubs and hostels throughout the world; the provision of mobile talkie plants and mobile canteens and the provision of sports gear; the grants to regimental funds to facilitate inter-unit games, and competitions; grants for the maintenance of bands and the divisional concert parties.

Remember, the estimated requirements on behalf of the Sick and Wounded alone, amounted to a quarter of a million pounds for this year and the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the N.Z. Red Cross Society will tell you that it has called on the National Patriotic Fund Board for approximately a quarter of a million pounds to cover its activities, as special agent of the Board, on behalf of the Prisoners of War. A good proportion of them are safely back with us now, and the greater part of the financial year has gone, and most of the districts have paid in their quota, but we’ve still to meet our obligations. No one would suggest that we must raised our quota because Te Kuiti and Te Awamutu and Cambridge have raised theirs for instance, but dt the same time, we cannot contemplate failure, where they have succeeded, can we? We cannot contemplate a time when our “Welfare Committee” will be without funds to meet the claims of cases thrown up in years to come by the aftermath of war. On our effort now, depends the adequacy of funds at their disposal. In perhaps only a matter of months, the war will be over as regards National Patriotic Fund Board general purposes expenditure, but, if current expenditure has to be met out of realisation of assets because of the default of particular district's, then the whole “After Care and Welfare Fund” and those District Committee’s funds in particular must suffer, and that will mean added suffering for servicemen and women who have already given health and happiness and years of and years off their lives. We are asked to give in cash or cheque, so that this Patriotic Service can be maintained right on to the end: Till the last surviving serviceman and woman is laid to rest in an honourable grave.