KING GEORGE FUND

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 247, 30 July 1937, Page 3

KING GEORGE FUND

NEW ZEALAND’S RESPONSE.

PREMIER THANKS THE PEOPLE

(Special to the “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Prime Minister (the lit. Hon. M J. Savage) has issued the following message, acknowledging the response to the appeal in connection with the King George V National Memorial Fund: Apart from farewell functions, my last public act as Prime Minister before leaving for the Coronation and the Imperial Conference was my appeal to the people of New Zealand on March 22, in launching the King George V national Memorial Fund. Now, on my return, it is my pleasure as well as my duty to thank, on behalf of the Government, the people of New Zealand fo,r their magnificent response to that appeal. In fixing the formal closing date of the appeal at June 3, his late Majesty’s birthday, I asked the people to subscribe £50,000 in just over ten weeks. Both my colleagues and I recognised the magnitude of my request. Easter fell in the same week. For a fortnight or more it was impracticable for mayors and other local body chairmen and the people generally to do anything in the way of organising machinery in support of my personal request to them. They were then faced with that organising work at a time when, throughout the Dominion, the thoughts and efforts of all were naturally centred on the Coronation. They were faced, too, with the prospect of raising a fresh wave of interest in the short interval of a fortnight between the end of Coronation week and the closing date of the appeal. We were not unmindful, either, of the fact that the appeal was made more than a year after his late Majesty’s death. For all that, my colleagues and I felt confident of complete success. Progress reports cabled to me in England filled me with pride in the confirmation they brought of my belief that the people of New Zealand would show to the full their reverence for the memory of a great and noble King. Despite Easter and Coronation preparations, half the objective was reached a week before Corouation Day. By May 22 the fund had reached a total of £44,000. On May 29 £54,000 (£4OOO beyond our objective) had been subsoribed. The final response in the remaining five days to the close of June 3 was truly wonderful, another £20,000 being subscribed. And to-day the public response has reached a total of £86,293 2s 6d. The result is one of which all may feel justly proud. To me who made the appeal, the most satisfying features are the facts —first that all but a small percentage of the total has come from direct giving: second, that some hundreds of thousands of individuals have contributed; and, finally, that every section of our people has responded so well. It was our desire that the children’s health camps should be the gift of the grown-ups to the children of our own and succeeding generations. Before I left I purposely did not ask the children to take part in the appeal. I find, however, that from one end of the Dominion to the other they took the matter into their own hands and played no small part in the general effort. It is impossible for me in this stateI ment to acknowledge the indebtedness of the Government or myself personally [ to all the individuals and organisations to whom I, before my departure, or my colleague, the Hon. Mr Fraser, who acted for me during my absence, made a direct personal appeal. I shall take the first possible opportunity of writing to each and all of them, I do, however, desire at this stage to acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude my indebtedness to his Excellency the Governor-General, the lit. Hon. G. W. Forbes, my immediate predecessor, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, and my own colleagues for their whole-hearted support and co-operation, which right from the beginning set the appeal on a truly national basis. To his Majesty King George VI. for his gracious approval of the fund as an object for a national appeal in lieu of any Coronation memorial, our loyal gratitude is due. I am sure that his Majesty will be proud of the response made by his people of this Dominion, not in their grief of a year ago. but in their calm recollection today of all that his beloved father was and all that his example meant to the welfare of his people and the peace of the world. The very magnitude of the public response imposes a greater responsibility both on the Government and on those who will administer the fund. That responsibility will be accepted in its entirety to the end that (to repeat the final words of my appeal), “not in brass or stone or marble, but yet in the creation of this tangible memorial of children’s health camps, a form he himself would have preferred, will the .name of George V. be an ever-living memory to the people of this far-flung outpost of the British Commonwealth of Nations which he served literally unto death.”