GREAT EFFORT REQUIRED

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22467, 30 September 1944, Page 4

GREAT EFFORT REQUIRED

EXCUSES MEAN EVASION “The battle is not over until the last shell is fired, and the last ‘money shell’ may reach the objective,” said Mr T. H. Melrose, chairman of the district war loan committee, in a message to the people of the Wai-kato-King Country Victory Loan area today. He pointed out that the district was still almost at the bottom of the Dominion percentage list. “We have only four days left of the period allotted to us to procure our quota, yet we are still on our first million,” said Mr Melrose. “It will require a great effort on the part of everyone if we are to be successful in raising our share.

“The money must be found, and any defalcation on our part in providing it is a grave reflection on our citizenship and the debt we owe to those men who are overseas. What a calamity might have befallen us had they put forward no better effort in their fighting, than we have done in raising the money to provide them with their sustenance and with the munitions of war. Do not quibble about waste and the hundred and one things that can be raised as excuses for non-giving. I know all the excuses, but I still know only one answer—our services are still overseas and any laxity on our part to subscribe to their maintenance shows only lack of appreciation of the services rendered to us by our superlative fighting men and women, or a desire on our part to evade the real facts. “War is All Waste”

“War is all waste and every war in history has had the same story. But are we not fortunate that in spite of the certain amount of waste which is inevitable and which would probably be still there if we who are so critical undertook the job ourselves, we are still here in good heart, with abundance of every good thing, money included, and not on a par with the millions of men and women who have to commence life all over again in their devastated and impoverished homelands. “So gird on your money belts, you fortunate citizens of the Waikato and King Country, and during the next three days invade your banks and post offices and bombard them with enough money to put paid to our small account for the war—£l,B9s,ooo for the 1944 Victory Doan.”