NORTH CHINA FAMINE.

Evening Star, Issue 20033, 26 November 1928, Page 10

NORTH CHINA FAMINE.

TO THE EDITOR. air—You did well to call attention in your leader of Saturday to the calamitous famine .which is desolating Northern China. Wo are all too apt to become parochial and sclf-ccntrcd in this .happy dominion, and to take but slender interest in the disasters that afflict vast multitudes of our fellow-men in other lands. I trust your article may prompt some of your wealthy and philanthropic readers to send help to the hunger-bitten crowds of Shantung and adjacent provinces. It has bcen_ suggested that the Council of Christian Congregations should open a famine relief fund in co-operation, as yon suggest, with the great American organisation (410 Fourth avenue, New York City). Perhaps in the meantime you would ho good enough to receive any amounts that generous donors may send in. Wo should imitate the virtues wo admire. Wo have not the boundless resources of America, and lack their direct association with China. But the magnitude and .urgency of China’s need ought to appeal to our humanity and charity, as well as to America’s. Our kindness to China in this time of her national disaster may make some amends for the wrongs we have inflicted on that unhappy land in the past, and would, in any case, indicate the sincerity of our sympathy. It would be, impossible, of course, to give adequate relief to a calamity so tremendous. All that we could raise would only.alleviate to a slight extent the distress that prevails in the stricken areas. ■ Y r et the fact that only a few of tlm -sufferers could be reached and helped ■ does not warrant us in withholding such help as lies within our power. Misery so extensive appeals to our humanity. Our lot is cast in a fertile land across which the dread shadow of famine has never yefc fallen. Our annual harvests are bountiful, and the terrible calamities that afflict the great empires of the East are unknown in these favoured islands. Gratitude for Nature’s bountifulness may well impel ns-to reach out hands of practical helpfulness to the hunger-bitten Chinese. We could utilise the organisation of the American Famine Relief Socictv for the distribution of any amount our people contributed, and could rest assured that it would be expended with economy and care. And no doubt we could count on our Chinese ifcllow-citizons sharing in any relief fund that was set on foot.—l am, etc., Fjukxu of China, November 26,