GRANTS OR CAPITAL?

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7718, 11 May 1916, Page 3

GRANTS OR CAPITAL?

HOW PATRIOTIC FUNDS ARE ADMINISTERED. “ SMALL BUSINESSES ” NOT FAVORED. ALLEGED FARCE OF THE LAND SCHEME. An idea put forward with some enthusiasm in the course of the launching of the Patriotic Fund in Auckland was the proposal that one of the functions of the fund would be the establishment in small businesses of returned soldiers who were qualified to be entrusted with a small capital grant, but at a recent meeting of the executive of the Patriotic Association it was made abundantly clear that those in charge of the administration of the funds are not prepared to endorse the policy of making capital loans, but prefer to expend the money by weekly grants in deserving cases. Arising out of a discussion on the report of the Claims Board, Mr A. S. Bankart expressed the opinion that it would be a good policy for the Board to assist returned men by setting them up in business. WANTED £750. Replying to the suggestion, the Mayor (Mr J. H. Gunson), who is chairman of the Board, mentioned that the Board had deemed it advisable to decline several applications for large sums. One returned man asked the Board to advance him £750 to purchase a motor lorry, the Board to have a lien over the vehicle, the cost of which would gradually be paid off. In another case a soldier applied for several hundred pounds to enable him to purchase a property in the north, while another man wanted £4OO to enable him to start a poultry farm. In every case the health of the applicant was indifferent, and the Board decide ed not to advance the money. In only one case had it extended assistance in a capital sum, and in this instance it had helped a man to get a fishing equipment on a hire agreement, the man undertaking to repay the loan at so much per month. The Board preferred to assist the men by weekly payments of from 25s to £2 a week for so long ,as they really needed assistance from the fund. If once the granting of the capital sums were started, the life and usefulness of the funds would he seriously curtailed. A member: Have we the legal right to make capital grants? THE LAND BALLOT. Te Mayor replied that there was no doubt that the association had the legal power to disburse the funds in that way, but it was simply a matter of policy. Proceeding, Mr Gunson remarked that there was another class of application in regard to which the Board had no hesitation in granting assistance. In one class of land ballot the Board was advancing the men the equivalent of a half-year’s rent. The position was that the Government had set aside special areas of land for soldiers, and were giving them preference and financial facilities by not requiring the usual deposit of a halfyear’s rent. The soltiers complained that the class of land available at the “soldiers’ ballot” was no good, and they would not look at it. The fact that they preferred to take their chances at the ordinary ballot lent color to the suggestion that the land was poor, and, in cases where the soldiers had been successful at the ordinary ballot, the Board had put up the half-year’s rent to place the men in the same position as if they had competed at the second ballot, and had also advanced them train fare to enable them to inspect their sections. Mr C. Rhodes asked what use the men could make of the land if they had no capital to place stock on it and build a. shack. The Mayor replied that a good many of the men were keen and practical workers, and, like so many of those who had pioneered the development of Ihe country, were making good by tlieir own labor, supplemented by small assistance and sympathetic treatment in other quarters. Other members spoke in approval of the policy adopted by the Board, and the report was approved.