THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS
Day by day for many months past The • Dominion has published detailed statemehts showing all amounts paid into tho local Patriotic Funds. These figures are interesting and valuable, but" still more valuableNvduld be daily statements giving particulars of all'payments made out of the funds.' Tho amounts in hand in some cases are reaching, high figures, and it is right to take the utmost precautions to see that this money, given often at personal "sacrifice- and ' deprivation, to' ffkosft benefit
it .is intended. Wo do not'impute laxity to the trustees of the various funds, but rumour has a thousand tongues, and no possible grounds should be left for suspicions -that administrative and. other expenses have been incurred unnecessarily. This is a direction in which organised effort in the expending of funds raised for charitable, patriotic, and other purposes has at-all times, in all parts of the world, proved pecu-. liarly liable to great and serious weakness. Generalised balancesheets issued at long intervals of timb_ are valueless as a check; The public should be told exactly day by day where the money is going , to, and we think it would bo an excellent plan, and an exemplar to tlio rest of the Dominion, if the treasurers and trustees of the various funds in Wellington henceforward issued such daily statements to the Press. The details should show to whom every, single payment was made and for what purpose, and administrative and other ' charges should be kept, distinct from tho amounts, actually ■ handed to the beneficiaries for whom the fund was inaugurated. We_do not suggest that the Press should necessarily publish tho names of the beneficiaries; these might be indicated as, sa;y„ "Case 27, trooper invalided with lung complaint, wife and two children (4 and 6 years)." The, names, however, might bo supplied to the_ Press, to permit of the full and independent verification if 1 thought desirable; Once a month the totals of the expenditure should be shown, and the percentages taken out, enabling the public to see exactly how much has reachctl the beneficiaries, ancl how much has been absorbed in administration and charges. Such a plan as this would lead to a healthy, rivalry between tie trustees of: the different funds, and if 'adopted generally would cause the various centres to vie .with; one another in makinjr the best showing in efficient distribution. /No one can tell when this war will end, and in the raising and spending of patriotic funds, equally as in the field of military action, the constant aim must be to secure a maximum, of efficiency and avoid all wasted ef-. fort.
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Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2511, 12 July 1915, Page 4
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438THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2511, 12 July 1915, Page 4
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