AMBULANCE SATURDAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9042, 7 March 1908, Page 4

AMBULANCE SATURDAY.

It would be difficult to find a social organisation more deserving of public sympathy and practical support than a Nursing Guild or an Ambulance Corps. We are fortunate in having both these institutions in our midst, and they are working together for the benefit of suffering humanity. The members give their services to the public without fee or reward, save the reward which comes of doing good; but they are in need of funds to enable them to carry out their work efficiently, and tc-clay has been fixed as "Ambulance Saturday" with the object of securing the modest sum of £SO for the year's operations. At first sight it might appear absurd that in a town of the size and importance of Masterton a special day should be fixed, and a host of collectors should go round to g3ther so small a sum, but those who know the many claims made upon business men for donations to one thing and another in the course of the year will recognise the fairness of asking the community as a whole, for whose benefit the Guild and Ambulance . Corps exist, to contribute towards the funds. Every citizen ought to feel it a duty to subscribe. The Ambuiance Corps has been before the public previously, and as a result of the community's practical appreciation of its'efforts an ambulance brougham, stretcher and other requisite paraphernalia have been procured. The Nursing Guild, which is associated with it, is a new organisation, and has for its object the relief of the sick poor who may be in need of trained nursing. Its sphere of action is therefore wide and extremely important. Both these humanitarian associations are deserving of the gratitude of the townspeople, and it is to be hoped that today the; modest appeal they arc making upon the residents will be responded to with the heartiest liberality.

The fallacy of the Government acquiring small areas of hign-prired lar.d for closer settlement, when larger, cheaper and more suitable areas are available, finds exemplification in the Tawaha Settlement, where the rents have had to be fixed at rates which in time of stress cannot be paid. At the meeting of the. Land Board on Wednesday, Mr J. T. M. Hornsby, member for the Wairarapa, presented a petition from the Tawaha settlers, some of whom the member for the district explained "were at their last gasp, and would have to go off tneir holdings unless they could get some relief." Their grass having gone, their stock had to go, and some of them were in a condition bordering upon destitution. The rents were very high, and Mr Hornsby pointed out that unless a remission of a year's rent were made some of the settlers would simply have to go off their sections, as they hai sold their cows and had no means of subsistence. Replying to Mr A. Reese, Mr Hornsby said the Advances to Settlers Department could not help, since the highness of the rents had reduced the interest of the settlers in the properties to almost nothing. All this shows the pass tenants under the Crown may liebrought to by the system of land pur chase for closer settlement which is too often adopted by the Government.