CANTEEN FUND SHOULD RELEASE £20,000

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 339, 26 April 1928, Page 16

CANTEEN FUND SHOULD RELEASE £20,000

UNEMPLOYED SOLDIERS AUCKLAND R.S.A. VIEW Unemployment among returned soldiers has.assumed such proportions that the Auckland 15., desires to ask the Canteen Funds Board to release £20,000 from accumulated interest on the canteen funds, the War Funds Council and the State to subsidise this £1 for £l, in an effort to relieve the situation. The annual meeting of the association last evening was unanimously of opinion, however, that the capital of the Canteen Fund should not be disturbed. It was revealed by Mr. E. F. Andrews that the Auckland Patriotic Association had had to consider during the past quarter four times as many applications for help as it had had to deal with during the corresponding three months of last year. The retiring president, Mr. Sinclair Reid, said that in 1922 the membership was 4,066; in 1923, 1,538; in 1924, 1,000; and in 1925 it reached bedrock at 612. In 1926 the membership came back a little to 633, and in the succeeding year it rose to 643. In the year just ended it went up to 850. He urged returned men to rally around the association, pointing out that an additional 350 members would enable it to live within its income instead of having to draw on its small capital. Mr. Reid referred to the work beingdone by the association in helping returned men, stating that the association was proud of the fact that men and families it had assisted were now firmly established. A remit suggesting the opening of the association to women war-workers who served overseas was endorsed by the meeting. Another remit suggested that applicants for economic pensions whose requests were declined should have the right of taking their cases to the Pensions Appeal Board.