The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1918 RED CROSS APPEAL

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 391, 12 July 1918, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1918 RED CROSS APPEAL

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

Throughout the Auckland Province a campaign for funds is in progress to enable the Red Cross Society to continue the noble work it has been doing for our sick and wounded soldiers. There is no need to commend the appeal to those who know anything of that work. There are, however, many who have little conception of the extent and character of the society's activities. There is, we know, an idea in* some quarters that all the hospitals in England in which the sick and wounded soldiers are treated are wholly maintained by the War Office. This, however, is not the case. There are hospitals in England which are absolutely and entirely under military control, and these, of course, are maintained out of Government funds. But the great majority are under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross Society ; they are, for the most part, established in private houses generously placed at the disposal of the authorities by their owners or occupiers: and the grants which the Government make towards their support are altogether insufficient to enable them to be run as they ought to be run, and as all would wish them to be run. Hence the necessity for the present appeal.

We have little doubt that that appeal will meet with complete SHecess. The residents of Franklin and Manukau Counties have had many and varied calls upon them of late, but we refuse to believe that the fountains of generosity which have been (lowing so freely will dry up while there Is so excellent a cause needing their assistance. It is, we think, hardly necessary at this time of day, and iti present circumstances, tu emphasise the claim which the soldier patients in the hospitals have upon our gratitude. We know what our men—our own kith and kin—have gone through and arc going through on the Western Front and in other theatres of war in order that we may dwell in sheltered security. We might say something, too, ol the rare and sustained devotion shown Dy the hundreds of women workers by whom the hospitals are supervised and staffed. I<arge

numbers of them are giving their services without fee or reward of any kind, content to know that they are doing what is in their power for the brave fellows who have been broken in the service of their country. While big subscriptions will be welcomed, it is to the help of the many rather than of the few that the executive are looking. None surely will lack the opportunity to give in one form or another, and if that opportunity is taken the success of the appeal will be assured.