HOW TO HELP RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 17959, 4 May 1922, Page 4

HOW TO HELP RUSSIA

SIR BT ROBERTSON’S REPORT. INDIAN CALAMITIES DWARFED. • i | Tho main impression • that one lakes away from tho famine area (wrote the British official investigator, Sir Benjamin Robertson, in his report) is of something akin to helplessness in tho face of tho immensity of tho calamity which has befallen the Voliga. Valley. “ Compared with my experiences in India, ’’ ,he says,_ “tho {amino is vastly more severe, affecting as it docs the whole rural population, . . . There aro no slocks of grain whatever loft with tho peasants in the Russian famine area—-mainly tho result of tho rennisitions made by tho Government in 1919 aiicl 1920. Private trade does not. come in to help to supply the deficiency, and the deterioration of tho railways readers supply a matter of tho utmost gravity-” 'in tho first place as a field for private charity Sir Benjamin put tho feeding of the adult population, which was slowly dwindlin'* from death by starvation. It was not advisable, lie said, to complicate the relief work of private organisations by asking them to undertake too diversified schemes, and ho recommended that work in connection with adult feeding should be taken up in tho two areas in"which the British organisations aro at present operating—m the Samara andSaratoff Provinces. Sir Benjamin emphasised the futilitv of attempting relief on a larger scale than there was any reasonable 1 prospect of carrying through. Even these I hvo areas could not be made seenro by British charity without an effort considerably greater than it had hitherto made. Kir Beniamin recommended that further supplies from Great Britain should take tho form of milled and unmilled grain, wheat, rice, beans,- peas, and the like. .Supplies of rye might he arranged with Poland. For adult relief Sir Benjamin proposed ouo English pound 1 a day, and that a ration of 151 b per head should bo given at a time from the relief centres, which need not bo close together, since tho people can travel six or seven miles, or even farther, to receive their rations. WHAT THE AMERICANS FOUND AT BOROVKA. The following report of a housc-to-houso inspection, made by •an American relief administration worker in Rprovka (Melekez district) gives, perhaps, a graphic picture of the horrifying condition to which tho famine-stricken Russian homes have been reduced. “In one cabin,’’ 'says tho report, “I found the corpse of an old man whose familv, fleeing starvation, have scattered apart at random. He tho strength to leave, and died a slow death. “We. are at- the entry of another thatch hut. Here we find tho corpse of a girl thirteen to fourteen year? aid. On peeing her I vividly recalled tho pictures I saw when a child on some magazine over tho inscription of ‘Famine in India.’ This was just the identical thing—a. skeleton barely coated with a thin, mud-colored skin, thin hands, an abdominal hollow, parched lips baring a. row of white young teeth. “In the huts next in line ever new corpses! There is no time to inter all. There is no strength left to dig graves. “Wo enter another shack. There is a big family. Somo of them are quickly weaving hast wisps into mats in the hope of marketing them and buying at least one pound of bread. A litt-lo girl with lug fixed eyes is squatting on the bunks. She is hound to die in a day or two. In tho corner you see .a heap of bast-wisp on which a bulky human body is lying under a wretched, shabby covering. lam told that two aro dying hero. I uncover tho rags and find a shrivelled, shrunken, wco bit of a girl elosoly clinging face to face to an adult woman. These aro tw£> sisters. Their mother died; their father is missing. They had no food for seven days, and are now dying. They don’t even turn their heads to us. Their wideopen oyes have the fixed, blank gaze.’’ FACTS ABOUT THE FAMINE. Only by appealing to the imagination can wo grasp the famine .in Russia. Fifteen times the population of New Zealand are starving. If formed into a procession and placed fifty abreast, the procession would extend from Palmerston to Christchurch or from Waikouaiti to Invercargill. Half of these sufferers aro little childrenchildren who aro foodless, helpless, homeless, parentless, friendless. One shillingwill feed a- child for a week and £1 for twenty weeks. Dr Nansen says it is “ tho most appalling famine that has ever happened in the recorded history of man.” Of thirtythree million people threatened with famine, nineteen million arc directly menaced with death. Whole villages, whole towns, whole provinces are sitting in their houses waiting for death to take them, too weak to fetch tho food that might save them where much can be had. In other districts hour after hour, day after day, a. continuous procession of dying people carry the dead to the common graves. An endless stream of corpses keeps, falling into the open pits. Raging blizzards and frost and snow add to the intense suffering of tho Russian: people. In somo places the starving people who had the strength “ went to tho graveyards to dig the corpses from the graves that they might eat and live.” Worse, “in other places the hunger-maddened men and women arc not only going to the graveyards for their food, but they have begun lolling each other in tho frenzy of tlieir despair. The sum total of British effort to February, 1922, is to establish 600 kitchens, from which. 250,000 children in the faminestricken areas are being fed. Professor Meredith. Atkinson, of Australia, who travelled through the faminestricken areas at his own expense, says: “I have travelled extensively on tho famine front. Everywhere was deepest misery, disease, famine, and death. Tho 400 miles I travelled with my camera seemed like a gigantic chamber o'f horrors. I have been haunted- by' grim spectres, for tho bodies lie in heaps imhuried. Many are being stolen for food. . , . Implore British people to make unprecedented effort to augment funds. Money sent now is worth ton times that sent later.” ■A relief worker writing of conditions at Buztd.uk (Samara) says; “The situation is becoming worse day by day. In our district there have been three instances we havp heard- of where people have eaten human flesh. In two cases mothers killed their children. One was at Efeemefka- (a gird of -fourteen), and in another case hero in Andriefka the body of an old- woman was used for food. One child in that family was receiving food- at our kitchen,” In a recent report issued by tho Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, based upon an investigation carried out personally by its’representatives in Russia and Poland, gloat stress is laid upon tho terrible menace these epidemics present to Europe and oiler countries. Typhus fever, -relapsihg fever, .typhoid! fever, cholera, and bubonic plague—ono ghastly:-pestilence—are claiming their victims in hundreds of thousands! “The famine has developed- in a country ravaged) by epidemic disease. In the- territories of Soviet ‘ Russia and) Soviet Ukraine no- less than 20,000,€00 oases of typhus occurred in the years 1919-20,” is made of tho strenuous work now being carried- out by the Russian sanitary authorities, who a-re doing their utmost, with very restricted- resources,to combat by special organisation the epidemic diseases. The Russian Government is giving every possible assistance ; it is supplying children’s relief trains• has sent food to the famine areas; established food kitchens; and! has provided- free offices, transport,, and) assistance to tho relief societies. • Tho Commonwealth Government has donated £50,000 for Russian famine relief, the Queensland Government has given | £IO,OOO worth of condensed milk, the Government of Now South Wales is granting a subsidy oif £ for £ on all sums con't-ri-ihated up to £IO,OOO, .

Workers have been distributing relief in Russia for th-e past twenty-two months, and during that time, it is reported-, losses in transit have been less than half of 1 per cent. All the trucks are sealed at the frontier, andi only opened in the presence of workers, which makes pilferage ex--trcmoly unlikely. TO-MORROW'S COLLECTION. The proceeds, of to-morrow's street collections for Russian famine relief will bo divided between Dr Nansen's fund and the Save tho Children Fund. The movement is entirely distinct from the European Students’,Relief Fund. In connection with the street, collection a. sale of produce will.be held in front of the old Post Office Princes street, at 7 p.m., when the jazz, band from the Soldiers’ Montecillo Convalescent Homo .will give a performance. Tho St. Kilda Band will plav at tho Fountain? and the Kaikoraif Band at the Octagon, at 7.30'p.m. At all three performances collections will bo taken up fur the famine sufferers.