PHILANTHROPIC IDEALS

Evening Star, Issue 23374, 18 September 1939, Page 16

PHILANTHROPIC IDEALS

COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS' SERVICES CELEBRATION OF FOUNDATION Commercial travellers throughout the province and without it came together for their annual celebration on Saturday night of Association Day. The occasion marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of the formation of the association, which was warmly congratulated upon the philanthropic ideals it made so forcefully apparent annually. The chairman was the president (Mr A. G. Hewitt). The mayor (Mr A. H. Allen) was among the large representation of visitors. , The major toast, ‘ The Day We Celebrate,’ was proposed by Mr E. R. Grace. He stressed during several illuminating remarks about tbc association its splendid corporate spirit and its ideals, and that one of its prime commercial purposes was to engender a philanthropic' spirit, especially among charitable institutions. He associated the toast with past presidents—Messrs D. Y. M. Miller and F. W. Mitchell. The history of the association, was traced in informative fashion by Mr Mitchell, a past united president. He spoke when replying to the toast of how the Wellington Association, among the first of its kind in the Dominion, broke_ its affiliation with the parent organisation of Australia and accepted an invitation to join the Commercial Travellers’ Union of Australia. Then, in 1913, there was a cleavage, and the result was the formation of the present association. The tribute the speaker paid was one about the ideals expressed in a warm-spirited and pecuniary way j by commercial travellers. I The growth of the membership of I the association was pointed out in interesting fashion since its inception by !Mr Miller. Now tlio personnel was ■ almost double. Apart from the charitable- fund the association showed its influence through the accident, fund for its members and the soldiers and sailors’ fund, which was the association’s largest charity contribution, the total being, £22,224. The Mayor stressed the necessity for all to do everything in their power — as much as was humanly possible—to help England in a (day when its supremacy as a Democratic Power was being threatened. The most forceful way in which its resistance could lie strengthened would he to produce its primary and secondary products to n peak level. The commercial travellers, said the Mayor, could make a very valuable contribution. The remarks of Mr J. H. F. Hamel were closely related in their import to those of the mayor. He moved a resolution. adopted, to the effect that the people of the Dominion should pause and not give way to mass emotionalism. The other toasts we ,-n ‘ Dur Guests.’ nrnnosed by Mr W H. M'Lean, and ‘ The Press and Performers.’ There was a v»ry eoiovable performance by A[r William "Walker'(sleight of hand!, the nssoci-'+'on's o-ofiestra (led naimbk bv Mr H. C. Ivins'!, Messrs <2 To V ] or . ffie Norman Brothers, and Air Ken