for the relatives of wounded
is very costly, especially in France, many hostels
being maintained for that purpose. Motor transport
is an expensive item for which there is no return,
and very large sums of money are spent on lectures
and educational work. It is estimated that the
Y.M.C.A. educational programme in France alone may
ultimately cost the Association fifty thousand
pounds a year. When the request has come to open a
new centre, the determining factor has been, 'Is
it needed?' not 'Will it pay?' Indeed many huts in
isolated centres cannot possibly be made to pay,
and yet they mean everything to the men who use
them. The spending department of the Association
has been built up with the greatest care. A body
of well-known business men meets for hours every
week and watches expenditure as a cat watches a
mouse. The Acting Treasurer of the War Emergency
Fund is a partner in a big firm of Indian
Merchants, and devotes himself with untiring
energy and conspicuous ability to the supervision
of accounts and to the expenditure. The accounts
are audited by a leading firm of chartered
accountants, and the audited statement of receipts
and expenditure together with a balance sheet, is
published in _The Times_ and other papers every
six months. In the canteens it is a matter of
principle to give full value for money spent, but
towards the war services the profits made have
been equal to a sum of ten shillings for every
pound contributed by the public. Owing chiefly to
the enormous stores that have to be maintained in
France and Overseas generally, the Bank overdraft
of the war fund has often reached four and five
hundred thousand pounds. It is thus not difficult
to see what is done with the profits. The Y.M.C.A.
might, had it so chosen, have feathered its nest
during the war, but with a sublime, though by no
means a reckless disregard of the future it
stepped right into the breach, and went straight
forward to meet the national need.

As a Y.M.C.A. we pride ourselves on the business management of our work.
We insist on busine