Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1939. PATRIOTIC FUND REGULATIONS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 October 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1939. PATRIOTIC FUND REGULATIONS.

ANY remaining misunderstanding of the scope arid purpose of the regulations governing patriotic funds in New Zealanc should be cleared up effectively b ?J h ® made bv the Mayor of Masterton (Mr I. Jordan), m his eapacy as chairman of the National Patriotic Funds Advisory (Council and published in our news columns yesterday. The Min steii o Internal Affairs (Mr Parry) recently gave an unqualif assurance that there was no thought of the Government exeicising control over patriotic funds. Mr Jordan, in . extended treatment of the whole question, made it eleai that provincial and local control over funds will be fully safeguards and that the regulations will serve a very necessary an excellent purpose“in preventing waste and overlapping and I in ensuring a maximum benefit to the men on whose behalf the funds .are to be raised. . , Under, the regulations, the National Patriotic Fund is to be controlled and administered by a national board. Provincia funds'are to be controlled by provincial councils and these bodies have power to set up separate accounts for special purposes. This, no doubt, will meet the case of towns and districts desiring to establish and administer funds for the special benefit of men enlisting from their areas. The fullest possible provision is thus made, for the local and autonomous control of funds raised in particular areas. . The positive purpose of the regulations and one ..in eyeiy wav warranted and made necessary by the experience gained during the Great War period and in the years that lollowed, is to avert and prevent confused, ill-directed and wastelully overlapping effort and expenditure which would be detrimental to all concerned. It is plainly to the advantage of the men for whose benefit funds are to be raised, and also, to that of contributors, that patriotic funds should be raised only for approved purposes. ‘ . While the raising of funds will be permitted only within defined limits and for specified purposes, full provision is made for an extension of these limits when, upon due consideration, it is found and shown to be necessary. As yet the only purpose for which the raising of patriotic funds has been authorised is that of supplying comforts, conveniences and special equipment to members of his Majesty’s New Zealand forces and to New Zealand members of any other of his Majesty’s forces. This is a reasonably broad working programme for the time being, though no diu'bt -it may have to be extended and amplified as the war continues. The position in a word thus is that provision is made tor an orderly regulation of the raising and administration of patriotic funds,'but that within the limits thus laid down the autonomous control of funds by the provincial councils, and by local organisations in areas in which special accounts are set up, will be most completely preserved and safeguarded. For the sake both of soldier beneficiaries and of contributors, and in order that the community may be encouraged to subscribe confidently and liberally to the patriotic funds, it must be hoped that the regulations will be-maintained and enforced strictly. The Minister has power to exempt any patriotic purpose from the application of the regulations or to declare any purpose not to be' a patriotic purpose under the regulations. He has authority, too, to delegate to any provincial council this power to grant exemption. These very wide powers of exemption evidently should be exercised with caution and reserve. It is, of course, desirable that the regulations should be reasonably flexible and that no impediment should be offered to any genuinely desirable and useful patriotic enterprise. There are dangers of confusion, waste and slackness to be guarded against, however, and any/easing of the regulations should be permitted only on specific grounds which have been examined thoroughly and found to be adequate. The Advisory Council has expressed an opinion that the Minister should avoid delegating powers of exemption to provincial councils unless the question has previously been referred to the Advisory Council. Otherwise, as the council very justly observes, delegation of the power of exemption might lead to a lack of uniformity. This contention appears to be worthy of the strongest emphasis. Exemptions granted here and there, on insufficient consideration, might speedily create a state of affairs in which any hor° of maintaining an orderly and methodical regulation of patriot funds would be destroyed. It may indeed be suggested that the Minister would be wise to take the opinion of the Advisory Council in all eases before exercising his own direct power of granting exemption from the application of the regulations. It is in ensuring an efficiently co-ordinated regulation of patriotic funds that the Advisory Council will serve its most valuable purpose. It is a matter simply of determining clearly and in accordance with recognised working principles the purposes for which patriotic funds are to be raised. Once again it may be emphasised that far from being inconsistent with the autonomous control and administration of provincial and local funds, co-ordinated regulation will establish the only conditions in which that control may be exercised to the full and with maximum advantage to all concerned.

A PROTEST FROM RUSSIA.

PERHAPS the strangest outcome of the action of the United States Senate in approving by a two to one majority the repeal of the embargo on the export of arms to belligerents is the reported outburst of anger in the Soviet Press. As all the world knows, the Soviet Press is the authorised and controlled mouthpiece of the Soviet Government. With that fact in mind, added interest is given to the news conveyed in one of yesterday’s cablegrams that the Moscow newspapers accuse arms manufacturers and profiteers of plotting to drag the United States into the war, despite the increasing hostility of the American masses to such measures. The decision, it is stated, means that the United States will help England and France against Germany.

These assertions prompt several reflections. For instance, the Soviet at present is either helping Germany or making use of that country in furtherance of Russian schemes of aggression. Whatever the precise intentions of the Soviet may be, it is not in doubt that the United States has vastly more in common with the European democracies than Russia has with Germany. That apart, however, the assertion that the Senate decision means that the United States will help England and Franc? against Germany is hardly accurate. If the Senate decision is approved by the House of Representatives, the Uiiited. States will sell arms and munitions, on. a cash and carry basis, to any belligerent. There are no grounds of law on which the rigid of the United States to do this can be questioned and if Hie Russian protest is supposed to rest on moral grounds it comes strangely from a nation which stabbed Poland in the back when the German invasion of Polish territory was still short of having been pressed to a. point of decision. That. Russia has since helped herself, very liberally, in Poland and elsewhere, does not alter the fact that she gave powerful help to Germany in overcoming the final resistance of the Poles. At the most direct view the Soviet protest against the prospective repeal of the American arms embargo thus wears a somewhat remarkable appearance of cynical effrontery. While the repeal of the embargo undoubtedly will assist the Allies, it has to be considered that the enforcement of the embargo has to a very material extent- assisted Germany. It has been stated with every show of reason that the existence of the embargo, and an expectation that it. possibly might be maintained, encouraged Germany not a little to pursue the policy of aggression which has plunged Europe into war. So long as the embargo is in force, it deprives the Allies of a not unimportant part of the advantage they may expect to derive from their command of the sea. The removal of the embargo may reasonably be regarded as a re-establishment of normal conditions, the more so since the American people, though admittedly they are anxious to keep out of the war, almost universally sympathise with the Allies and condemn German aggression.