AEROPLANE FUND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 December 1940, Page 8

AEROPLANE FUND

UPWARDS OF £145,000 IN HAND WHOLE SUM TO GO TO BRITAIN. PURCHASE OF TWENTY-THREE FIGHTERS. (By Telegraph—Press Associaiton—Copyright) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) announced today that the total so fatreceived as subscriptions to the Aeroplane Fund for Britain amounted to £145,607 5s sd, contributed as follows (nearest pound):— Northland. £5,010; Auckland, £39,599; Taranaki, £4,625; Marlborough, £1.298; Westland, £747; Otago, £529; Southland, £21,000; total, £102,940 8s sd. In addition to the district collections, the following sums were forwarded direct to the Government:— New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, £7,500; Women's Division of the Farmers’ Union, £5,008; New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, £30,000; European and Native residents of Niue Island, £l5B 17s; total, £42,666 I7s. At the request of the Mayor of Dunedin, collections in Otago have been deferred, but are now being made. The appeal generally was launched on the basis of £1,000,000, New Zealand currency, to be donated for the purchase of fighter planes, any balance over this sum to go towards the training of pilots under the Empire Air Scheme in Canada or the purchase of war machines for the defence of New Zealand. The Government has now decided to donate the whole amount to the purchase of fighter planes. Having regard to the district collections and the amount contributed by the Meat Board, a request is being made for the purchase of 23 planes, representing £145,000 already collected as follows. Northland/1; Auckland, 5; Waikato, 1; Taranaki, 1; Hawke’s Bay, 2; Wellington, 3; Marlborough, Westland and Nelson, 1; Canterbury, 2; Southland, 3; country women of New Zealand, 1; New Zealand, 3,