THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2610, 4 November 1915, Page 8

THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS

NATIONAL COUNCIL SET UP

THE OBLIGATIONS OF COMMITTEES STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER A statement regarding the personnel and tho functions of tlie War Funds Council was made by tlie Hon. G. W. llussell (Minister of Internal Affairs) to a Dominion reporter yesterday. "A National War Funds Council has been set up under the Act passed last session," said Mr. Russell. "The personnel of the Council! will bo the Mayors of the four cities (ex officio); Mr. J. H. Upton, a director of the Bank of New Zealand, representing Auckland; Mr. Walter Bethune, of Wellington ; Mr. Hugh Morrison, chairman of Wairarapa Patriotic Committee (this appointment being a recognition of tiio splendid patriotism, shown by the Wairarapa peoplo in raising so much money for wounded soldiers); Mr. William Reece, of Christchurch, also a director of the Bank of New Zealand; _ Mr. John Roberts, C.M.G., aoting chairman of tho Union Steamship Company.; and Mr. J. D. M'Gruar, a leading business man in Invercargill. "The duties of the Council are to provide for the control and efficient- administration of such funds as are handed over to it by patriotic committees. The Council will be callod together shortly, and in the meantime regulations for the carrying-out of the Act are hems* prepared. One of the questions which will probably come before tho War Funds Council will be that of settling what responsibility the Patriotic Committees proposo to take in connection with tho returned soldiers. Already there are over 2200 returned soldiers in New Zealand. For those who.are sick or not yet recovered from their wounds, the Public Health Department takes responsibility from the time that they are placed in any of the .institutions under the control of the Minister of Public; Health until they are discharged from thoso institutions. When they are filially discharged from the service they come under the control of the Hon. A. L. Herdman, whose task it is to endeavour to put them in the way of earning a livelihood. Neither Mr. Herdman nor I has been supplied with sufficient funds by Parliament for carrying 011 our work. Up till now a considci-Qblo sum has been given to the Public Health Department by tho various committees, the last large amount being 0110 of £1000 from Napier for a, pavilion at the Rotorua Convalescent Home. Sir. Herdman is provided with 110 funds. Tho question which lias to be solved is 'At what lwint are tho Patriotic Committees who have raised huge sums of money for sick and wounded soldiers, going to accept their responsibility? What is to bo the dividing line between the Government and the Patriotic Committees?' Cases have already been brought before Mr. Herdman and myself of men who lwvc been discharged and who are in need, either through weak health or through inability to fiud employment, "This quostion will, I tliink, have to be settled by a conference between representatives of the Government and. of the Patriotic Committees. The Government has no desire to shirk its responsibilities to the soldiers, but it is evident that the responsibility of the Government ceases when the soldier is discharged, and from that point onward surely the Patriotic Committees, who have been given these large sums of money for tho men, will como in _ I havo no doubt many of tlho Patriotic Committees will recognise their responsibilities. It is just possible that it may be necessary to call a conference of Patriotic Committees a little later in order to discuss these phases of the question.

"I find tlicre is a growing feeling throughout the whole Dominion in favour of nationalisation of th? patriotic funds, provided full representation is given to the several districts on tho controlling body, and provided also that the local advisory committees which ■ire provided for in the Act are made thoroughly effective and- efficient. On that aspect of the question, however, I do not care to express any opinion except to state that the ultimate outcome of the present provincial schemes must be nationalisation of tlifc funds in some form or other."