STATEMENT BY HON. JAS. ALLEN

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2413, 19 March 1915, Page 6

STATEMENT BY HON. JAS. ALLEN

CONDITIONAL REMITTANCE OF FUNDS. GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSALS. A suggestion has been made that the recent conference of representatives of the various collecting agencies for patriotic'and relief funds by passing a resolution asking tho Government to subsidise private donations to the Belgian Fund nad in a measure run counter to tho implied directions of the Imperial Government that direct Government contributions ought not to be made to tho Belgian Relief Commission. The Hon. James Allen (Minister of Finance) was asked by a reporter to state exactly what was proposed. "It is not correct to say that the resolutions parsed by' the conference run counter to the advice of the Home said Mr. Allen, "because all the money subscribed here is to be sent through this Government. We shall send it to the High Commissioner with instructions that he is not to dispose of it except after consulation with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, tho object being to ensure that the money so subscribed shall be devoted to tho purposes for which it was intended —that it shall go to relieve the Belgians and not to put food into the mouths of our enemies. The whole scheme is being worked out now, and I hope to be able to make tho details of it public in the course of a day or two. "Generally the proposal is that the Government shall give a lump 6um of £5000 . every month, and a pound for pound subsidy np to £5000 a month on. all voluntary subscriptions. This means that if £5000 per month is subscribed every month by the people of the Dominion the Government will pay £10,000 per month.' That means a total of £15,000 a month from this country. The maximum Government donation will be £120,000 a year, and it must be provided by taxation. We shall have to take this extra expenditure into consideration when we are dealing with our proposals for extra taxation."