PATRIOTIC COLLECTION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 111, 17 January 1940, Page 5

PATRIOTIC COLLECTION

DIFFICULTIES OF RED CROSS MAYOR OUTLINES THE POSITION An outline of the difficulties which the Red Cross Society Avill experir enec through new regulations affecting its collecting for Provincial Patriotic purposes was given by the Mayor, Mr B. S. Barry, at the Borough Council meeting on Monday night. The new regulations state that collections by the Red Cross Society are to be for the National Patriotic Fund only, whereas the aim of the various branches of the Society in this district has been to collect solely for the Provincial Patriotic Fund. "I was in Tauranga on Thursday at a meeting convened by Sir Ernest Davis," said the Mayor, "and T took the matter up with him. I pointed out that conditions in the country were vastly different from those obtaining in the city. I asked that we be allowed to retain the Red Cross organisation, and that It function on the lines previously followed. Mr Wilkinson, Mayor of Tauranga, and Mr Brown, Mayor of Te Puke, concurred Avith mo." Mr Bariy, continuing', said that Whakatane had a branch of the Society which was very strong. It was formed on the outbreak of war, and when the earlier regulations came info force, requiring recognised bodies only to conduct appeals and, collections for patriotic purposes, it seemed that in the Red Cross Society, Whakatane had' a body already formed for the work. Now it appeared that all that Avould have to be scrapped as the Society could not collect for the Auckland ProAincial Fund. To collect only for the National' Fund would mean getting away from local interests. To Call a Meeting". "The position is that I aaMII have to call the ladies of the Red Cross together,'* said His Worship, "and ; inform them matters stand. There is one way they can get OA r er , the difficulty and that Is to become a dual body, calling themselves the ; Whakatane Patriotic Society Avhen collecting for the Auckland Provincial Fund and the Red Cross Society Avhen collecting for the National Fund'."' In ansAver to a question regarding the respective functions of the Auck land Provincial Patriotic Committee 1 and the National Funds Board, the Mayor explained that funds collected by the former AA r ere used in supplying comforts to the troops Avhll<* moneys collected under the agency of the latter AAere dispersed on behalf of the sick and Avounded.