RUMOURS DENIED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1939, Page 7

RUMOURS DENIED

RED CROSS & PATRIOTIC FUNDS GOVERNMENT NOT TAKING OVER CONTROL. STATEMENT BY MINISTER L OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An emphatic denial of statements that the Government was taking over the Red Cross organisation and funds in New Zealand was given by the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry), in an interview yesterday when a rumour to that effect was referred to him. “There is absolutely nothing in the allegation,” said the Minister. “The Red Cross is a permanent body which has existed for years and which will continue to exist long after the present war. In so far as it is administering in conjunction with the Order of St. John a large war fund raised during the last war the Patriotic Purposes “ Emergency Regulations have no appli- ; cation to it. That fund is still gov- ‘ erned by the War Funds Act, 1915. “ Again, the New Zealand Red Cross o Society is a body functioning for “ peacetime purposes, which do not come : within the scope of the regulations. < MAGNIFICENT ORGANISATION. “With regard, however, to its activities in the present war, the society is, like every other body in New Zealand, subject to the regulations and it is not authorised to collect for expenditure by itself contributions for patriotic purposes of the present/war. There is full authority in the regulations for utilising the Red Cross and all other societies for the purpose of collecting money and goods for any of the eleven provincial funds, or for the national fund, and also authority for the Red Cross to be appointed by any or. all. of the provincial patriotic councils or the National Patriotic Fund Board' as an expending agent. I have not the slightest doubt that full use will be made of ■ the magnificent organisation of this and other bodies, so that the best results may be obtained from these funds. “The necessary step precedent to that is, of course, for the Red Cross Society to apply to the National Patriotic Fund Board or to the various provincial councils to be appointed as an authorised collector, and, if necessary, as an expending agent. The sum of all this is that the Red Cross Society would be an active agent in the general community effort. FUNDS & AUTONOMY. “This gives me an opportunity,” Mr Parry continued, “of giving an emphatic denial to allegations that the Government is taking charge of patriotic funds. The National Patriotic Fund Board and the provincial patriotic councils are entirely autonomous bodies, each owning and controlling its own funds. Not one penny of these funds will come into the hands of the Government, nor will the Government have any voice in their expenditure. It is obvious, of course, that all these bodies must work within the regulations, and it is only as the authority issuing the regulations that the Government can in any way be said to exercise control. "With regard to the administration of the regulations, the mere fact that such a responsible body as the National Patriotic Council has been set up to advise the Government should be a sufficient guarantee that the Government is anxious to do its very best to help the people of New Zealand to raise and themselves expend the money in these funds. I say without fear of contradiction that the whole scheme of the regulations provides an opportunity for true community effort, the like of which we have not before seen in this Dominion.” Mr Parry said that so far as the Red Cross body was concerned, its interests would not be overlooked, either on the national board or the National Advisory Council. There were members on both who were actively associated with the work of the society.- _____________