FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO SOLDIERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 28 August 1942, Page 2

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO SOLDIERS

OVER 12,000 APPLICATIONS RECEIVED Christchurch, This Day. Applications totalling 12,445 had been received by the Soldiers’ Financial As sistance Board up to 31st July, said Mr Armstrong, Minister in Charge of Soldiers’ Financial Assistance, this morning when releasing the latest figures covering the board’s operations. The total commitments of the board up to the same date reached a total of £159,572 Us Id.

Mr Armstrong said the Board’s com mitments indicated that applications were given very generous consideration to say the least. Applications were received from men in the three services or their dependents, and there was a maximum grant of £3 a week. He emphasised that payments made by the board were straight-out gifts with no obligation for repayment. With every group of men going into camp an increasing number of applications were received. The position was understandable in view of the fact that men now being called up were men with greater commitments and greater family responsibilities than many of those called up previously. The Board had been set up early in the war but its operations on a major scale had only started in the last year or so. An interesting point was that every member of the Board was a returned soldier. In making grants the Board’s object was to leave a man’s dependents in a position as near as possible to that in which they lived before the man went into camp. It seemed that assistance was sought principally to meet rent payments. There were many cases where wives, but for the assist-

ance from the Board, would have to give up their homes to live with relations. With the assistance from the Board they were able to keep their homes going for the day when their husbands returned.

i The Minister said .hat from what he knew of its work the Board was a very fine institution and he had heard very few complaints.—P.A.