PLIGHT OF THE CZECHS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22595, 28 December 1938, Page 5

PLIGHT OF THE CZECHS

TO THE EDITOR OS' THE PRESS. Sir, —One imagines that last September New Zealand must have shared in the world-wide relief when an unthinkable calamity, in which rivers of blood must have flowed, was averted.

But soon came the consciousness that the price of the great gift of peace had been paid almost entirely by the Czechoslovakian Republic. Part of the price has been the cession of a large part of her territory; and Whether or no that territory ought to have been made hers 19 < years ago, the actual result of the cession is that some third of her population are homeless, having had either to leave their Sudentenland or to find themselves and their families shut up in prisons and concentration camps. The people of Great Britain at once realised that help was needed for these refugees in the now reduced and impoverished Czechoslovakia. Even in a small Wiltshire town like Trowbridge almost every shop had its collecting box on the counter, while a large chest stood in front of the Town Hall. One thinks it likely you did the same sort of thing at the Antipodes to help these innocent victims, whose sacrifice did so much to preserve us all from war.

But the plight of these unhappy people cannot be relieved solely, or mainly by money. If they are to survive the winter two practical measures are required at once; they must be evacuated, men, women, and children, with the utmost possible speed, and a provisional home found for them; and then, without parting families, arrangements must be made for distributing them thi’oughout the world.

The immediate problem is obviously the share of nearer countries, but 40 years ago I remember New Zealand as a remarkably hospitable place. You have a country comparable in size and fertility with ours, and perhaps 4 per cent, of our population, and when a great need is known the Land of the Long White Cloud is usually generous. There is no doubt that a prompt offer of land for the permanent settlement of these hard-working and intelligent people would greatly help. Perhaps in New Zealand you are already planning how best to carry this out. In that case please accept my apologies for putting in my oar.— Yours, etc.,

AMY L. ALDIS. Trowbridge (England), December 2, 1938.