The Daily News TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1930. AN ANZAC DAY FUND.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 July 1930, Page 8

The Daily News TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1930. AN ANZAC DAY FUND.

Whatever may be the fate of the proposal, emanating from the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association ‘‘to make Anzac Day one of true significance to all sections of the community” by establishing a special fund for the benefit of returned soldiers or their dependents, there can be no doubt that the intention is admirable and accords with the true spirit of Anzac. The conference acted wisely in adhering to the anniversary being kept on April 25, the day on which the ever memorable landing took place. Equally fitting was the eventual decision to create the fund in question, not by amending legislation requiring all employers to contribute to the fund the amount that would other-wise be paid as wages or salaries of the whole of their employees for that day, but to institute a system of voluntary contributions by those who at present receive payment of wage:, for that day. Even that amended proposal does not entirely meet the case, as it omits the employers and all others outside the class of wage-earners. If tlie intention is to make a national offering towards the suggested fund the scheme should be all embracing, and the mere act of giving would in itself emphasise and help to keep alive the Anzac spirit—the spirit of those gallant heroes of whom it is justly said: “All they had they’gave.” There may be some who, in view of the generous gifts mc.de by the public in the past, cannot . understand why there exists a need for creating another fund, but those who are in touch with the returned men and their dependents are all too painfully aware of the growing need for assistance as well as the difficulty of meeting cases which do not fall strictly within the categories of those eligible for relief from such funds as now. exist. When the original funds were raised and there was in sight what seemed like an inexhaustible supply of money to ensure that no returned soldier during the remainder of his life should be subject to hardship arising out of his war services, there was every disposition on the part of those controlling the grants to be liberal to applicants who were then suffering certain percentages of disability. To their lasting credit, be it said, there were many men who suffered from the effects of poison gas, shell shock, enteric and other diseases contracted in the trenches, at Gallipoli and elsewhere, who were too proud to partake of the relief fund, although they claimed as a right the small temporary and fluctuating pensions from the Defence Department in order to tide them over until they could earn their own living. It was always known that many of these men would eventually suffer from their war afflictions and that provision should be made for them, especially as they, battled on bravely in their vocations in the same courageous spirit they had shown in the war, and when any of these high-minded men was compelled to enter a hospital for treatment it was long odds against the Government paying the bill, let alone making an allowance for incapacitation. It is such cases as these, for which the authorities deny assistance, as well as for others .where help is essential, that a new fund is needed—a fund that should be in the control of a voluntary and not an official body, something of the nature of a joint action by the Manufacturers’ Association and the Returned Soldiers’ Association. The epic of Anzac is worthy of being thus specially commemorated in a practical and sentimental manner. For reasons that can be understood there was no Anzac Medal struck. That is all the greater reason why there should be a special fund, for it would be far more valuable as a tribute to the Anzacs and the glory they won for the young nations of the Empire than any decoration could possibly be. The proposal certainly does credit to the patriotism of its authors.