PATRIOTIC EFFORTS

Southland Times, Issue 24821, 13 August 1942, Page 4

PATRIOTIC EFFORTS

Sir—Foiled in his personal attack against the Red Cross workers Mr Bennett retires behind a smoke screen and launches another against the leaders in Southland. These however are rank-and-file workers, so it all comes to the same thing. I readily concede to Mr Bennett the right to pursue his own course of action according to his own standards; but I ask him to concede the same right to others. I should utterly despise myself if I asked anyone to commit a breach of his principles or to do something he considered dishonourable. Let Mr Bennett too refrain from making any such request. Is Mr Bennett unable or merely unwilling to see that if the Patriotic uses Red Cross purposes to collect money for fit soldiers it is committing a moral wrong and an international illegality which may bring penalties on our prisoners of war? I understand that in the appeal which was conducted some weeks ago less than £3OO was specifically ear-marked for the Sick and Wounded Fund. Since the printed circular which was issued in that appeal bulked largely with Sick and Wounded, Prisoners of War, Red Cross and similar objects clearly the bulk of the moneys given were elicited by those objects even if they were not specifically earmarked. The publiq will not henceforth be hoodwinked by the “earmarking” argument. The collection of moneys for the Sick and Wounded Fund is the self-assumed task of the Patriotic Councils. The Joint Council was anxious to undertake the appeal, on a Dominion-wide basis, paying all moneys collected into the fund. The conference of the Provincial Patriotic Councils resolved, however, to keep it in their own hands.. F. G. HALL-JONES. August 12, 1942.

Sir,—How fitting the handsome and deserved tribute to the Patriotic Fund Board paid by Colonel Burton of the Salvation Army over the radio this evening, and what a contrast with the mischievous letter published this morning in your columns over the name F. G. Hall-Jones in answer to W. J. Bennett’s of August 8. Yet both the Salvation. Army and the joint council of the Red Cross and the Order of St. John are the distributing agents, through their excellent organizations, of money supplied by the Patriotic Fund Board., Unfortunately there is truth in what Mr Bennett maintains. Owing to the lack of a frank statement by the Red Cross the public generally does not appreciate the fact that these bodies are supplied with their requirements from patriotic funds, and far beyond the amounts ear-marked and paid into the Patriotic Fund on their account. If any confirmation of this lack of a frank statement were required, it is evident in Mr Hall-Jones’s letter. His attitude does not promote the interests of the sick and wounded.and prisoners of war whom the bodies he represents do profess to serve and do serve with the generous contributions from the Patriotic Fund.

His attempt to make Mr Bennett’s words apply to these organizations instead of to the attitude of some of their members is too thin and brings him little capital and small credit. His statement that the patriotic authorities are using the Red Cross name to raise money for comforts, and so on, for fit soldiers is contrary to fact. No doubt this will be refuted from the proper quarter. The fact is that the appeal for patriotic funds is being used to supply the Red Cross to the full extent of its requirements. COGNOSCENS. August 10, 1942.’