The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1940. ALL GOOD CAUSES.

Evening Star, Issue 23682, 16 September 1940, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1940. ALL GOOD CAUSES.

“ Hitlee knocked our house down, but he ain’t got us down,” said a woman of London’s poorer quarter to the Queen after her house had been demolished by a German bomb, along with twentythree others in a single cluster. All the Empire, and more than the Empire, will admire the British spirit with which she spoke, not for herself alone,-.but for thousands of others. There will be general satisfaction in this country that the Government has sanctioned the immediate transmission of £IOO,OOO, New Zealand currency, to the Lord Mayor of London’s fund for the relief of distress caused to these indomitable victims of Nazi depravity, who have been bearing the first brunt of the Empire’s warfare. From all parts of the Empire similar gifts will come, as they are coming from all classes, beginning with the King and Queen. Tho best will be done to restore those shattered dwellings and to ease the rigours Of war for those evicted from them while they are being rebuilt, and if Otago was being asked now to contribute its Queen Carnival collections for the next few days to that particular fund, we can imagine how they would leap ahead. Actually that adaptation of our latest patriotic appeal to, bo launched is not required. The gift money will be provided, generally, by allocations from the funds of patriotic councils throughout the Dominion, whose appeals, aiming at a million sterling altogether for rehabilitation of New Zealand soldiers, provision of relief for them and their dependents, also comforts, are being advanced in date for the sake of this new object. When tho national campaign for all of these purposes, made wide enough to include the new London one, was proposed, however, the Otago Patriotic Council had already mapped out a course for its appeal, in which the Queen Carnival Committee controls a special field, A first. collection was made for general patriotic purposes, including assistance in camps and comforts, and now the last-named committee is appealing for the rehabilitation of New Zealand soldiers as its single object. This area’s contribution to the London fund will presumably bo taken—though it may need to be made up again later —from the amount earlier collected. That object being satisfactorily and without any delay provided for, it remains, for the public to give their best support to the Queen Carnival Fund, for New Zealand rehabilitation, on its own merits. That other funds may make a more immediate appeal to the emotions of these and the other persons called on to contribute should not affect the response in a single case. Other causes may have values of their own, yet not actually hasten the relief of distress in London, which will be a constant process, or the provision of munitions of war, by a single day. But it is the oldest of all experiences that if provision is not made for the rehabilitation of soldiers, which is the aim of the Queen Carnival Fund, when they go away they are likely to fare worse tho longer that conservation of funds is delayed, and, after too many past wars, they have fared very ill indeed.

There will be funds to raise as long as tho war continues, and too much importance can b© imagined in the order in which they come. Again, in every scheme that is put forward in a democratic community, there will bo a hundred ideas, conflicting with each other, of how plans which are, put forward could be improved upon. Once a scheme lias been launched, however, with tho best thought of those who have been made directly responsible for its planning, tho only useful thing for dissentients on details to do is to sink their differences, fall in behind it, and give it their best support. “ You cannot,” said Mr Lloyd George, “ make war by a Sanhedrim.” It is impossible to make auxiliary efforts in war time on the basis of everyone framing his own plans. All the proposals which have been made for raising funds for war purposes in this district stand for good causes. They will all have their turn. That individual will best serve the war effort who does his best for each of them as it comes.