DEPLETED FUNDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 151, 28 June 1934, Page 10

DEPLETED FUNDS

B.S.A. CONCERNED. A serious view of the depletion of the canteen, patriotic, and national war funds for the relief of unemployment distress among ex-servicemen, was expressed in the report presented at the N.Z.R.S.A. on Tuesday. While recording grateful thanks for the assistance given, the report pointed out that the Canteen Fund had dropped from £202,660 in February, 1932, to £18,839 two years later, and since 1932, when the expenditure began to exceed the income, £19.853 had been charged to capital account. In regard to the national war funds, in 1931 the funds stood at £166,111, and in 1933 were down to £140,496, while the current year would see a further reduction to about £130,000. The local patriotic and war relief societies were also feeling the extaordinary demands, and their funds were being dissipated at a rate which was never anticipated. “What then of the future?” asked the report. “It was contemplated that these funds would form a ‘reservoir’ for future assistance to those suffering from the effects of their war service, in later years, but they are being utilised to succour ex-servicemen and their dependants in a most deplorable and relentless state of unemployment; it is regrettable that this should be, and it is only hoped that an the future, when the ex-servicemen need the support of the public to replenish their coffers, it be remembered that the expenditure made when unemployment was rife provided a safeguard for the populace from absolute chaos and perhaps worse. ‘‘The illustration of the difficulties experienced by the New Zealand South African War veterans, to obtain funds to assist their comrades, is a sorry one and their present numbers are small in comparison with those who returned from the Great War; will the same difficulties be existent and endured in 1954 if necessity is rife and the veterans lack funds?”