WHAT IS NEW ZEALAND DOING?

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 55, 7 March 1922, Page 4

WHAT IS NEW ZEALAND DOING?

m TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I write to endorse the remarks made by your correspondents "A Colonial" and Evelyn M'Donald with regard to the indifference of the Government B,nd' the public generally towards the starving people of Russia. Accredited men like Sir Philip Gibbs, the war correspondent, and Dr. Naneen, the no less famous Arctic explorer, have been eyewitnesses of the horrors they describe.: They have made eloquent and earnest appeal to the governments and people of all countries, including our own, but as yet no response worthy of us, or in any way commensurate with the need has been made. The distress is too profound and widespread for casual benevolence. What is needed is a national fund, or better still, as your correspondent suggests, gifts of produce from the surplus stocks.. It is quite probable that this appeal will be met with the shallow excuses with which selfishness and indifference can always protect its pockets. We hear a good deal about unemployment and financial stringency, but there is not much evidence of it in this city. Where are those who do not enjoy at least three meals a day, while in Russia set this minute millions are literally starving to death. The only way I can account for the general indifference of a people usually generous and sympathetic, is that the long discredited bogey of Bolshevism is constantly paraded Defore our eyes. Do people realise what a small fraction of the Russian people are really represented by that term? Out of upwards of one hundred and fifty millions of R.usaians, mostly illiterate, inarticulate, and benumbed by centuries of oppression, less than three-quarters of [a, million axe Bolsheviks (see latest accounts by Capt. M'Cullugh in "A Prisoner With the Reds," 1921). Another reason may be that in our hearts we bear a grudge against our former ally for failing us in the war. Have we forgotten how, in the early days of the war, while we were building up our forces, it was. Russia who bore the shock, and when driven hack by weight of numbers and superior equipment, returned again and again to meet the steel ? Do we forget the horror of the Masurian Lakes? Her losses were tremendous, her sufferings unutterable, but still she pressed on until betrayed by her rulers—always her oppressors/ Munitionless, half starved, and bewildered, she reeled from autocracy through revolution into anarchy. If a single caee of real starvation were to occur in our midst, we would rush with relief. Have we not imagination enough to picture the sufferings of famine ai^d diseasestricken districts under the rigours of a Russian winter? If we' could realise them we would hasten to the relief of these unhappy people. While we hesitate tens of thousands of helpless women and children are perishing. If humanity urge us not, then let self-interest speak for pestilence is twin-sister to famine, and pestilence knows no frontiers. Our indifference may recoil on our own heads, and we shall deserve it. Moreover, the prosperity of Europe depends on the restoration of Russia. By helping her we are helping/ ourselves. We plead for Governmental action, but failing that, will the generous people of this country- respond, either by establishing a fund or by private donations? A few week* ago Chriatchurch opened a fund, cannot Wellington take similar action. Distribution is made by fully accredited British agencies. I append one' guaranteed by tho British Premier, Mr; Asquith, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others.—l am, etc., CHARITY. 6th Maijch.