45 
LAINU & WATER 
August 10, 191b 
Fifty Million Sterling in War Gifts 
By W. E. Dowding 
How many people remember that the nearly 
/b.ooo.ooo, at which the total of the Prince of 
\\'alcs' National Relief Fmid now stands, is at 
least 50 per cent, short of the actual suni 
contributed by the public to relieve distress consequent 
on the war ? All over the country additional local funds 
ha\e been raised and never sent to London. A town 
would set up a higher or broader scale of relief. When it 
could get no grants from London to carry it out, its contribu- 
tions were no longer sent to London. So some £3,000,000 
has been collected locally. Most of it is spent. To-day the 
provincial towns are protesting against the request of central 
authority to appeal to their own people for funds to supplement 
pensions for their own soldiers. 
To these sums must be added the £150,000 given by the 
Dominion Government of Canada for the relief of boarding- 
liouse keepers and others on our East Coast. What these 
unhappy folk want most is money to keep up their rent. 
Homes "and furniture are their trading capital. It is con- 
sidered outside the purpose of the National Relief Fund to 
give relief in such cases. 
Bigger than all these together is the aggregate of the funds 
raised by communities of people engaged in departments of 
the State, in banks, offices, factories, colliery districts, and 
so on, to help the families and dependents of their own men 
who have taken up arms, and to re-establish tlie men them- 
selves when they come back. From the General Post Office 
down to the shoemaker's shop, such funds have been built 
up by regular payments from the wage-earners, supplemeiited 
by grants from employers and votes by shareholders. The 
amount is well above £100,000 a week. But taking that 
modest minimum figure and multiplying it by 104 weeks we 
reach a total of nearly io| million pounds. 
At least another million should be added on account of 
sums independently raised by such organisations as the 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association, the Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Help Society, the Officers' Families Fund. They 
bring up the aggregate to £20,000,000. 
Red Cross Funds 
Next in popularity, though not in amount, let us take the 
Red Cross group. The Times Fund already exceeds 
£4,000,000, and is growing faster than any other fund. It 
finances the work of the British Red Cross Society and the 
Order of St. John of Jerusalem. But the figure does not 
embrace the funds raised by the Scottish and Irish branches 
of the society. And throughout the Kingdom local sub- 
sidiary branches have raised and spent sums that are not 
announced in any central total. We may safely say that 
£5,500,000 in all has been contributed to support the Red 
Cross. The beneficent work done by voluntary funds for 
our sick and wounded men does not end there. Artificial 
limbs are being provided ; blinded men are being trained to a 
new life ; convalescents are being entertained at country 
houses or taken for drives at somebody's expense. Many other 
such works are being done. A value may rightly be placed 
also upon the generous accommodation freely surrendered to 
hospitad uses. Against some of these items definite figures 
could be placed. Others are susceptible to estimate only. 
Together they swell the total to something over £6,000,000, 
without counting the contributions to the R.S.P.C.A., and 
kindred organisations caring for the beasts of war. 
There are "necessary" comforts and there are "extra" 
comforts, to adopt the division made in the first war of the 
century. The former included clothing and tobacco. Tiie 
latter were of the kind instanced by chocolate and hospital 
supplies such as bandages. It was an arbitrary attempt to 
distinguish between things that are not distinguishable. 
We now count as a " comfort " any supply that is extra to 
the official supplies of the War Office and the Admiralty. 
The chief of these is tobacco. Approved organisations have 
been permitted to send tobacco to the soldiers direct from 
bond, i.e., without payment of duty, and the quantity so 
delivered from bond " for the use of H.M. Military and Naval 
F'orces Abroad " was last year more than ten times as much 
as in the year before the war. It was nearly h.V million lb. 
Some measure of this particular " comfort " is given by tliat 
figure. Beyond it there is a spacious field of generosity 
covered by the gift of tobacco in its various forms purchased 
privately from the shops. Of this no record is possible. 
Some idea of the value of the clothing, which is the next 
item in order ai imoortance. is eleaned from an examination 
of the returns of such a well-organised agency as Queen 
Mary's Needlework Guild, which in the first year of the war 
despatched goods (mainly to our fighting men) estimated to 
be worth £100,000 cost price. There are a very large num- 
ber of " comforts " organisations. They make or collect or pur- 
chase articles of all kinds, from mouth-organs to motor-kit- 
chens. They gave those footballs which the Surreys " passed " 
into action the other day. The Camps Library alone has sent 
out more than six million books and magazines (which I 
value at secondhand buyers' prices). Kvery home in the 
land has contributed something. The value of the two 
years' outlay cannot be less than £6,000,000. It is probably 
much higher, hut 1 am conservative in every estimate. 
The work of such organisations as the Y.M.C.A., the 
■S'.W.C.A., the Church Army and the Salvation Army is not 
included in any of the foregoing figures. The first mentioned 
has collected over £600,000. There was a special fund of 
over £150,000 raised for the Indian soldiers ; and in this 
group should be included also the arrangements made for the 
entertainment of all our Oversea troops. These organisations 
together have received from the public more than £1,000,000. . 
Belgium stands first in other National Relief Funds. Her 
needs are great because her resources are gone in the desola- 
tion of war. The Neutral Commission has received and 
disbursed among the destitute in Belgium a total benevolence 
of £4,000,000. The refugees within our own shores have 
been cared for at a willing expense, in food and clothing and 
lodging, of not less than £3,000,000. There are a score of 
special (and now recognised) funds raised and administered 
in the country for the Belgian people. Chief of them is the 
Belgian Relief F'und. Altogether the British people have 
gladly given not less than £8,000,000 for the nation that bore 
the first shock of war. France, Russia, Serbia, Poland, 
Italy, Armenia, Montenegro, have all learned how deep is our 
sympatliy with their sufferings in the common cause. It 
seems almost a sacrilege to put a figure on it at all. But 
with Belgium included it is over £10,000,000. 
We have reached a conservative total of £43,000,000. 
There is something yet to add. Within a few days of the 
outbreak of war the two leading motor-car owners' associa- 
tions listed 34,000 people willing to lend their cars to the 
country. I should say that at least 20,000 motor-cars have 
been used daily throughout the war in voluntary work in 
connection with the various emergency organisations, not 
counting cars taken over by the mihtary authorities. The 
cost of wear and tear and of petrol and frequently the wages 
of the drivers are borne by the donors. I have put that cost 
very modestly at ten shillings a car a week, which works out 
at something over £r, 000, 000. 
Everywhere voluntary agencies have enjoyed the use of 
offices and premises rent free. Professional work has been 
done by the paid staffs of bankers, accountants, auctioneers 
and solicitors. Volunteer Training Corps, special constables, 
women in responsible war duties, entertainers, voluntary 
workers by the thousand have incurred personal expense 
so that they, too, might take their part in the great work. 
Some value should be put on their outlay, which is no less 
a contribution to the war funds than if they had sat idle and 
sent in cheques. It is at least another miUion pounds, and 
it brings my total to £45,000,000. 
From this I have excluded funds raised in the self-govern- 
ing Dominions, in the Crown Colonies, and in India, and there 
retained for home use. They thought first of the needs of 
the Mother Country and, with British residents the world 
over, they contributed freely and very generously. Latterly 
they have had to provide for their own needs. If I were to 
extend this Ijricf review to funds voluntarily raised and ad- 
ministered in the FZmpirc outside these little islands, I should 
be able to account for a superb total of much over £50,000,000, 
Summary of Two Ykars' Resi'lts. 
For the Relief of Distress, and the re-estabUshmcnt of 
returning to civil life 
Tor Sick and Wounded Sailors and Soldiers. . 
Comforts, valued at . . 
I'lntertainnient of our Fighting Men . . 
I'or Our Allies . . 
Miscellaneous (including motor-car owners' expenses ; 
sonal expcn.ses of voluntary workers, etc.) 
Total value of gifts received andjor administered in 
l!n ited Kivgdom 
Add funds raised and administered wholly Oversea 
Imperial Grand Total 
20, 
6, 
6, 
I, 
000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
per- 
tlie 
2 ,000,000 
45. 
5. 
000,000 
000,000 
50,000,000 
