DISENTANGLING KNOTS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3086, 17 May 1917, Page 6

DISENTANGLING KNOTS

CARE OF SOLDIERS' DEPENDANTS

WORK OF THE -WAR RELIEF ASSOCIATION

Without an occasional look into the rooms, an occasional glance into the books, and an occasional attendance at a meeting, it is difficult to grasp the intricacies of the work that has been imposed on the War Relief Association by the exigencies of war, and the publie's generosity in meeting the many cases of hardship the war has caused. There is scarcely a day passes that does not bring' with it a fresh new problem or a fresh angle of an old one, and some of them cause, a good deal of hard thinking before action in taken, for it must be remembered that the association is trustee for tho public, whose money must be safeguarded as far as possible from anything in. the nature of imposition. Initially, the money now heing disbursed by the Wellington War Relief Association was subscribed for sick and wounded soldiers and sailors and their dependants, but the association, constituted long after the money was raised, takes a wider view of its privileges in the disbursing of moneys, as has been illustrated by donations made to the Y.M.C.A. and Salvation Army funds for special war work. There is also another way in which the funds are being encroached upon, that the association do not consider altogether right and proper, but regarding which. they are somewhat helpless. When a man goes into camp lie is not allowed to draw any money for a month ; that-is to say, he has to work a month for the King before he gets paid for it. ■ What is the.case, then, of a married man who, on going into camp, leaves his wife and two children with precisely Bd. to keep going on for a whole month ? Such a case recently came before the association. The man, who had married since the outbreak 'of the war, had been called up in the ballot, and, owing to being thrown out of work for a month on account of tho coal strike, he had only Bd. left on the day he donned khaki, and with that sum food was purchased for his baby in arms. That case cost the association £8, and yet the • members of the association are fully awaro that the funds were not raised to meet such cases., The system is to blame, and the matter is being brought before the Minister of Defence for some sort of adjustment. In the meantime the public pays.