PATRIOTIC APPEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 March 1942, Page 2

PATRIOTIC APPEAL

HOW THE MONEY IS SPENT. PARCELS FOR PRISONERS OF WAR (Issued by the Masterton Executive of the 1942 Patriotic Appeal.) Hardly a day passes without the members of the Patriotic Fund executive being asked the question: “What are these funds for and how is the money spent?” The question is a pertinent one, of course, and the executive is glad to have the opportunity of answering it. It will be remembered that £1,000.000 was raised in 1941. This year it was considered that £750,G00 would be sufficient but conditions changed so rapidly that it was soon obvious that at least a £1,000,000 would be required for 1942. The number of New Zealand prisoners of war was increased in the recent Libyan battle. These prisoners of war are receiving a parcel a week each from the Red Cross organisation which is the National Patriotic Board's expending agent. Each parcel costs 15s and the expenditure involved in parcels for prisoners of war is about £4,500 weekly. The welfare of these men has been given immediate attention. A striking example of the conditions obtaining in enemy prison camps came under the notice of the local executive. A member of the N.Z.E.F., now a prisoner of war, writing to his wife said that the food conditions were so bad in the camp that it could in truth be said that he for one was being kept alive by the Red Cross parcels. This then, is one of the directions in which the money the public is asked to donate will be spent.