PATRIOTIC FUNDS

Wanganui Chronicle, 24 July 1947, Page 4

PATRIOTIC FUNDS

AUCKLAND DISCUSSION AS TO THEIR USE

(P.A.) Auckland, July 22. Emphasising that they would not have ex-soldiers of any war living in need in the city, the Mayor (Mr. Allum) declared at a meeting of the Auckland Provincial Patriotic Council that if money were available Tor assistance of ex-servicemen of the Boer War and the First World War, it must be found.

“If people are sitting on these funds, then they will have to get off their seat,” he remarked. Mr. Allum said that in Auckland patriotic funds would find all that was needed for the proper welfare of exservicemen of the Second World War. and their dependents. The mayor made his remarks as chairman of the council after Mr. Ensor, of Thames, had urged, expenditure of patriotic funds within the lifetime of the servicemen for whom the money was contributed. He said that if the £4,500,000 in patriotic funds could be treated as a whole, and drawn off at a rate of four per cent annually for allocation to ex-service-mens organisations on a capitation basis, there would still be £1,300,00 at the end of 30 years.

Mr. Ensor referred to a statement in the report, of the National Patriotic Fund Board that while the present period of comparative prosperity lasted there would be small demands on patriotic monies. He thought that while such a colossal sum was available it should not be necessary for exservicemens associations to make appeals to the public for funds to aid former soldiers.

Mr. A. P. Postlewaite, president of the Auckland R.S.A. quoted an example of permanently incapacitated men receiving a war veteran s allowance of £2, from which they paid 32s 6d for bed and tray, leaving 7s 6d to meet all their other needs. Mr. Allum pointed out that the figure of £4,500,000 mentioned by Mr. Ensor included a canteen* fund of £869,000, which came out of the pockets of the soldiers and belonged entirely to them. Another £400.000 was set aside for the Joint Council of the Red Cross and St. John for work among the sick and injured, and the total amount, would be further reduced by expenditure on proposed veterans’ homes.