SOLDIERS AND MAYOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 332, 18 April 1928, Page 9

SOLDIERS AND MAYOR

POPPY SALES DISPUTE MT. EDEN COLLECTION Though Friday will be Poppy Day the Returned Soldiers" Association and the Mount Eden Borough Council are at loggerheads. Mount Eden claims that the money collected in that district should be expended there. “This is the first time that any local body has attempted to put any restriction on Poppy Day,” declared the president, Mr. Sinclair Reid, who declined the suggestion. In spite of the president's "outbreak,” says the Mayor of Mount Eden, Mr. E. H. Potter, he trusts that the women's organisation, which lias the question in hand, “will have a successful collection.” According to Mr. Reid, the association could not possibly agree to any conditions in regard to Poppy Day. The fund, he pointed out, was administered by trustees independent of the association. “Mr. Reid seems to be agitated about the request of Mount Eden to spend the funds collected in assisting the soldiers in their own district by subsidising the amount collected £1 for £ 1 and finding work in the district,” said Mr. Potter in a statement this morning. The president is doubtless a good soldier but he is evidently not much of a business man. If he will compare the collections made in Mount Eden in recent years with those made elsewhere, he will see that they compare very fav* ourably, and this is due to some extent to the amount of assistance which it has been found possible to obtain by the method pursued. “Mount Eden has been favoured with an excellent women’s organisation which lias done valuable work for Poppy Day and for other causes. The president seems to think he has a grievance, which I regret, though t am quite unable to see the grounds.” In future, Mr. Potter declared, he would personally pay the expenses for organisation in his own borough instead of making a contribution to the funds. If the association elected to receive the collection, said Mr. Potter, then they would lose the subsidy from the borough. The work, it is stipulated, must be carried out in the Mount Eden district.