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Evening Star, Issue 17959, 4 May 1922, Page 6

A vivid chapter of Mr John Masefields novel, ‘ Multitude and SoliHclf) for tudo,’ describee the situaRussia, lion of two European scientists in a sleeping sickness area of Central Africa. They have a drug with them which can cure the deadly malady, but they have only a few doses of it. All around them men and' women arc dying of the remorseless disease, and the author describes the feelings of the two white men as they move among these pathetic beings with, the burden on their goals of deciding whom they shall choose to make live and whom to let perish. Hut there was one thought which never entered their minds. As far as their euro would go they had to use it. They could not let human beings—even savages—die whom they were able to save. The task and) the limitation which the novelist’s imagination depicted.' hate been laid on the "civilised world by the Russian famine. But this time it is not merely a few wretched villages, it is fifteen times the population of New Zealand, that requires to bo saved from a fato far more terrible th:m sleeping sickness. No power in tho world can rescue more than a proportion of those sufferers j but tho strongest and tho youngest can bo kept alivo and tho famine prevented from going on from year to year, causing new desolation and pestilence. And tho immensity of tho catastrophe which requires relief should cause all questions of what circumstances may have added to the severity oi tho famine, or whether Russian JJolshoviks, in ordinary circumstances, might bo tho best people to help, to fade into insignificance. It was not among tho Russian peasants that Bolshevism took its rise, and the Bolshevik hy is

doing its utmost now to relievo tho misery. Relief sent to Russia will be sure of reaching those for whom it is intended'. If these people wore dying in Dunedin streets, where a collection will be raised to-morrow -to give succor to them, there would bo no thought of asking who they were before assistance was given. If the question should bo asked in different circumstances tho claim to compassion might be only strengthened by tho reply. Russia, saved tho war for tho Allies, at tremendous cost, before her present rulers did their best —and failed —to lose it for them. Self-interest also stands to bo served by the giving of prompt help in this calamity. If famine and pestilence aro not checked 1 in Russia, it is certain that they will not be limited to its borders. But tho appeal of humanity should ho all-sufficient. Fellow-beings aro dying in Russia by the million. A shilling will save a child’s life for a week, which may mean tho saving of it altogether. A pound will do as much for twenty children. That appeal should bo irresistible.