POPPY DAY.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 18 April 1922, Page 4

POPPY DAY.

“Baek from the place where the soil is red, And the earth-is torn and bare, Where the sleeping forms of the happy dead Are free from cankering care. Better their lot than the man who returns Broken and worn in the war.” From information received from Headquarters, N.Z.R.S.A. Poppy Day will be a huge success throughout the Dominion. Complete preparations have been made in every city, town, village and hamlet to ensure the success which the venture deserves. Without any doubt it is the biggest philanthropic social undertaking ever put before the public by the Returned Soldiers’ Association for the benefit of returned soldiers, and the objects to which the money raised is to be devoted must commend themthemselves to the public. About a quarter of the money rais ed will be remitted to PariSj where a committee will disburse it among the widows and children who made the poppies. The remainder will be solely devoted to the relief of unemployment among soldiers. There are at present between 1000 and 1200 unemployed ex soldiers throughout New Zealand and the N.Z.R.S.A. has decided to obtain work for these men and thus relieve general unemployment. It should be carefully noted that with the exception of overhead expenses the N.Z.R.S.A. will not retain one penny of the money raised; the amount gathered in a district will be spent upon work in that district. Madame Guerin, the Poppy Lady of France, and direetdr of the French Children’s League, has cabled to the General Secretary, N.Z.R.S.A., that six French flags have been forwarded to him to be. awarded to the six towns which sell the most poppies on Poppy Day.