PATRIOTIC FUND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 74, 21 May 1943, Page 5

PATRIOTIC FUND

COST OF ADMINISTRATION

A HALE-PENNY IN THE £

From time to time strange, arguments are heard regarding the raising of patriotic funds and. there are those avlio seek to cloud, the issue with built-up surmise. We have heard it said that there should be any collection of public money, that tlie Government should lobk after every need of our fighting and auxiliary forces. There are those avlio airily state that the boys overseas get only a fraction of the A'alue of the money that is given, that the bulk of it is eaten up in administration, or the inference, is made that someone (we have never yet heard who this someone might be) is getting a cut out. of it.

The Beacon, in company Avith every other neAA'spapcr in New Zealand, veceivcs a monthly statement of accounts from the National Patriotic Board, but we ha\ T e not sufficient staff to be. able 1 to* give time to dis>secting these reports and. so bringing them into printable form in our small issue, but readers are quite Avelcome to the loan of them for study purposes.

As communities Ave are prone to imagine Ave are being asked for half our earnings for the purpose of helping to keep our protectors, a little bit more comfortable. When figures are delved into it is doubted whether Ave should feel so complaccntly self-sacrificing. For instance, the 1942 * appeal produced £894.,958, roughly about eleven shillings per person per year —nearly sixpence a week, in fact. For such a vast sum given individually it is amazing that so much contentious hot air has been let looie.

Of the sum mentioned £111,034 was spent on the Sick and Wounded Fund, £2:51,398 on the. Prisoners of War Fund, and the balance Avas spent, on general Patriotic purposes which includes comforts for troops and. nurses and in New Zealand, purchase of avool for knitting,. and grants to the various church organisations, the Y.M.G.A., Navy League, and Salvation Army.

Out of this sum, administered by a properly constituted National Patriotic. Board, the administration costs amount to one half-penny in the £.

Every Aveek each NeAV Zealand prisoner of Avar receives a parcel containing *21bs meat, Jib butter, tin of cheese, tin of coffee and milk, b tea, tin of jam, 6ozs chocolate, tin of honey, tin of dried fruit, and a tin "of vegetables. Some, of these parcels are lost in transit but there are those in our community who can show Avritten evidence that the majority of them reach their destination.

Some folk arc still ruminating oA'er the mistakes of the last Avar, but it is not a great help to those to use the. past as an ex--cause for keeping our Avallets well filled for our oavii personal comfort. We know perfectly avcll that there are untold calls upon the family purse and aiding the Patriotic Fund is only one A'ital issue among many causes equally important but Ave also know that the SerA'ices Avoukl be the sufferers if the fund Averc not maintained at a maximum.