RED CROSS APPEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1940, Page 8

RED CROSS APPEAL

NO POLITICAL CONTROL OF FUNDS.

ADDRESS BY MRS FRASER. (By Telegraph—Press Association., WELLINGTON, This Day. Money given to the appeal would never be used to relieve the Government of its recognised duty to provide all the reasonable necessities for sick, wounded and distressed men of the fighting forces, said Mrs Fraser, in an address last night in support of the Sick, Wounded and Distress Fund appeal. Mrs Fraser said that £250,000 would be needed to meet adequately present and future requirements. There was no political control whatever of the funds and complete arrangements had been made to remove any difficulty in the sending of money overseas for patriotic purposes. Every voluntary contribution would be used only for the extra supply of comforts for sick and wounded and distressed and prisoners of war. Money freely given by the people of New Zealand during the last war, including a large sum subscribed for the Red Cross, amounted to approximately £l,500,000 sterling and the remaining part of this sum was still being used for those injured or affected in health in that conflict. In the same way the money now being collected would be used in the years to come. So far the New Zealand troops had fortunately not been in action, but when this did happen, there would be heavy calls on the fund. Any balance would be used for the rehabilitation of the New Zealand ex-servicemen of this war. The appeal had been launched on Florence Nightingale Day, May 12, and the success of it would prove that the lamp she lit so long ago still burned undimmed today.