Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1942. PATRIOTIC FUNDS AND OBLIGATIONS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 November 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1942. PATRIOTIC FUNDS AND OBLIGATIONS.

yyrDE approval and support should, on the merits of the case, be given to the proposals advanced by the Dominion Conference of patriotic bodies, which met in Wellington yesterday, with reference to the raising of patriotic funds and the objects to which they should be applied. The conference “overwhelm-ingly-repudiated” the idea of raising patriotic funds by taxation. It could not well have done anything else, for it is rather obvious that funds raised by taxation would not be ‘‘patriotic funds” in the specialised meaning that term has acquired. A resolution passed by the conference read: —

That this meeting disagrees with the principle of raising money for the all-purposes patriotic appeal by taxation, and recommends that the Government be asked to pay to the patriotic funds the amount required for prisoners of war food parcels, recreation nuts in camps, and such other matters as may be decided upon.

An opinion held by the delegates that some of the items at present figuring prominently in the expenditure of both the National Patriotic Fund Board and the provincial patriotic councils were rightly the concern of the State certainly is shared by a great many people, throughout the Dominion. Items like food parcels for prisoners of war and recreation huts in camps decidedly should be provided as a matter of right and it. should be regarded as in the fullest sense a national responsibility to provide them. There is no'better reason for appealing to the public to subscribe voluntarily the cost of items of this kind than for asking them to meet in the same way the cost of the uniforms and weapons of the members of our fighting forces.

It is plain enough that the Government is not entitled to shirk such responsibilities as were indicated at yesterday s conference. It may object, however, and that on sufficient grounds, to paying into the patriotic funds money for some of the purposes suggested. The Government, for example, has its works and technical staffs and there is no obvious reason why it should pay money into the patriotic funds for the erection of recreation huts. It may instead simply provide the huts. The essential point, in any case, is that everything to which the members of our fighting forces are fairly entitled should be provided by the State as a matter of right and should not be a charge on patriotic funds. To this it may be added that an accumulation of funds to be administered as time goes on under some sort of discretionary authority —a process that has already developed on a considerable scale in this country where patriotic funds of the present war are concerned—has its Undesirable features. Taking account of rehabilitation plans, military pensions, and the development of the national system of Social Security, there should be little need in New Zealand for setting aside funds which have been raised by voluntary appeal, with a view to providing for needs which may arise at some more or less uncertain time in the future.

It is the national duty of the people 'of the Dominion to meet and satisfy now, or as they arise, the legitimate claims of those who are now bearing on their behalf the brunt and burden of war service of every kind, and to give the members of our armed forces, on their return, every practicable opportunity to re-establish themselves satisfactorily and securely in civil life. It is outside these broad limits that scope appears for raising and expending patriotic funds and the purposes to which these funds are to be applied should be stated plainly when they are being raised.