SICK AND WOUNDED

Evening Star, Issue 22804, 12 November 1937, Page 13

SICK AND WOUNDED

FUND FOR DISTRESS IN CHINA URGENT APPEAL TO DOMINION A meeting of representatives of Dunedin organisations, held in the Council Chambers last evening and presided over by the Mayor (the Rev. E. T. Cox), gave its wholehearted support to a request from the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society to organise a campaign in Otago and Southland to contribute £ 2000 toward a New Zealand fund of £IO,OOO for the relief of distress and for the sick and wounded in China. There was an attendance of about 40. and after the Mayor and Dean Cruickshank had addressed the meeting an Executive Committee was appointed, and plans for the immediate launching of the campaign were discussed. It is intended to make an urgent appeal for assistance, as the campaign is to be closed at the end of the month. Disappointment was expressed that there was not a bigger attendance, and it was said that there was not a sufficient appreciation of the appalling conditions existing in China at present. £IO,OOO OBJECTIVE.

The Mayor first read a letter from Dr A. R. Falconer, a member of the executive of the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society, which embodied a communication from Sir James Elliott, chairman of the Far East Fund Committee set up by the Joint Council. It asked that the help of Mayors and the local press be obtained in opening a fund in the Otago and Southland districts for the relief of distress and for the sick and wounded in China, whose need was very great. The New Zealand Government was very sympathetic. Churches and all charitable organisations were particularly invited to assist. The appeal, the letter stated, specified the sending of medical personnel, equipment, and money. In the meantime, money was required as the first essential. The objective was to raise £IO,OOO for New Zealand as quickly as possible, of which the Otago and Southland districts were asked to accept the raising of £2OOO as their quota.. An emergency meeting of the executive of the joint committee on October 15 carried a motion that the joint committee should, at the request of the International League of Red Cross Societies, take up the work immediately of raising funds in New Zealand for the purpose of relief of Chinese in the East, Mr C. Meachen and Mr M. S. Galloway were appointed interim secretaries, and it was decided that the organisation and necessary machinery should be set up and that the Executive Committee of the joint council should be given power to act. An Appeal Committee,/with Sir James Elliott as chairman, was' then set up. Copies of cablegrams from the League of Red Cross Societies, Paris, and the British Red Cross Society were read. The former quoted a cablegram from Nanking: “ Get Red Cross, Nanking, canvas for 1000 stretchers, 500 1 artery forceps, 500 scissor forceps, 25 surgeons, five orthopaedists. Please notify New Zealand, Australian Red Cross Societies, and advise what they can do.” The letter continued that Mr John Gielgud, International Red Cross assistant secretary, while in Wellington explained that the international committee, in calling for help for the Chinese Red Cross was, as always, impartially carrying out its responsibilities toward suffering humanity, directing the assistance where the need was greatest. The committee had already ascertained that the Japanese Red Cross, to which it was equally prepared to offer assistance, did not require aid from other countries in its humanitarian work. Dr Falconer added that he was authorised by Sir James Elliott to state that the National Missionary Council of New Zealand had agreed to merge its own appeal with that now being made by the Joint Red Cross. It was desired that all lists should be forwarded to Wellington by November 30. DYING WITHOUT TREATMENT.

“At the request of the International Red Cross Movement, whose headquarters are in Paris and whose activities are available in any part of the world at any time to any people; without respect to nationality, creed or colour, the New Zealand branch is making an appeal for £ 10,000 for the purpose of sending from this country, in combination with Australia, 25 surgeons, a staff of nurses, equipment and ambulances to relieve the situation caused by the Sino-Japanese war in China,” the Mayor said. “The Red Cross officers in China, the location of the conflict, inform the world that thousands of soldiers are wounded and dying daily without proper surgical and medical treatment and care. This condition of affairs is not only the cause of untold suffering to these combatants, but is productive of the most dreaded of all complaints, the outbreak of plague, which unfortunately does not confine its ravages to the country of its origin but spreads its trail of death and desolation across the world. “ In addition to the combatant distress, the bombing of great cities is inflicting intense agony upon the civil population of that area. These cities too are without the medical and surgical attention required in such a state of emergency. The beneficent Ministry of the Red Cross is of international repute and has been carried on for three-quarters of a century, from the time of its origin in Geneva during the war in Italy. The society then formed pledged itself to act to assist the sick and wounded, to maintain its international character and to be permanent in its operation. A committee of experts laid down these fundamental principles and appealed to the nations to ensure protection to its centres, that on all battlefields the wounded should be respected, that medical supplies should be provided and that hospitals should be neutral zones. Two years later, 26 nations agreed to this policy, which now has world wide acceptance and support. It is in keeping with these ideals that the New Zealand Red Cross now makes this appeal.”

The unit would be employed in China, where the need was so great, as Japan already had the largest and most fully equipped Red Cross in the world, with approximately 2,500,000 adult workers and 2,000,000 juniors, and Paris had been notified that no assistance was needed.- It was desired that this fund should be raised immediately and the detachment sent forth quickly. Mr Cox added that the Lord Mayor of London recently opened a fund and £25,000 was raised within a few days for this purpose, the Bank of England heading the subscription list with 1000 guineas and the other leading banks following with 500 guineas each. Otago was asked to aim at £2OOO. TRAVESTY OF CIVILISATION. Whatever feelings were held in regard to war, everybody must surely have profound sympathy with those who were wounded, Dean Cruickshank said. Modern weapons were neither respecters of persons nor of parts of the body, and with their enormous range and power they maimed non-combatants as well as fighters, women and children, and in a manner far more appalling than the most ferocious savage of history had ever imagined. “ Such a shocking state of affairs is a bad enough travesty of our civilisation when the wounded can be cared for with sympathy and the reliefs of modern science/' he continued. “But words quite fail to picture what the Chinese must be suffering at the present time. It is not my intention to enlarge on the horrors ■ which must be patent to any thinker, but I would in passing endorse the warning that we cannot afford to ignore the possibility pf an outbreak of world plague as

the result of these conditions. But it is not my intention to appeal on utilitarian grounds. However diverse may be our interpretations of religion, I count it an honour to be allowed to appeal to the religious instincts of all in Otago' to support the magnificent ideas of the International Red Cross Movement. This movement takes no notice of creed or colour, but offers help to the wounded no matter who they may be. Surely it is a great ideal.” _ Co-operation between the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John (commonly known as the St. John Ambulance) was effected in England in October 1914, and during the Great War £24,000,000 was raised by The Times appeal, he added. An empowering Bill was to come before the next session of the New Zealand Parliament to provide for the formation of a Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society, having as its object the co-ordina-tion of the activities of both bodies in New Zealand on the model of the agreement in England. “ But the appeal which we are to consider to-night comes from headquarters of the international movement at Geneva, and I do commend it most heartily to the sympathy of everybody,” the dean concluded. “It stands for a great principle—that enemies, when wounded in battle, become brothers in suffering rather than prisoners of war.” A DESPERATE NEED. Dr Falconer and other speakers emphasised that in China at present were beyond general realisation. The need for assistance was desperately urgent, much more than the public generally seemed to appreciate.. _

The following representative executive was appointed:—The Mayor, as chairman, and Mr D. C. Cameron (City Council), the Mayor of Green Island (Mr T. M. McAhan), representing other local bodies; Messrs C. C. Smith and J. G. Jeffery (Red Cross Association), Dr A. R. Falconer and Mr H. L. Paterson (Order of St. John), the latter as deputy chairman; Messrs H. P. West and H. L. Longbottom (business men section); Messrs T. Connors and H. Brown (trade unions’ section); Dean Cruickshank and the Rev. D. Miller (the churches); Miss B. Farquhar, Miss B. H. Barron, and representatives of the National Council of Women and the Women’s Missionary Society; with power to add. Mr E. J. G. Johnston accepted the duties of secretary. A meeting of the executive was held after the public meeting. The Dunedin Chinese Missira has again received from other missions in this city gifts of clothing, for Chinese refugees in Shanghai. These gifts are being sent to the Chinese Foreign Relief Committe in Shanghai. Three large cases, weighing approximately one ton and a-half, have been placed aboard the Union Steam Ship Company’s steamer Karetu, which sails for Sydney this week, and are to be transhipped to the s.s. Taiping, of the Australian Oriental Line, for Hongkong. The mission desires to thank all those who have voluntarily assisted in this generous way, and also wishes to state that further gifts of a similar nature will be gladly accepted in any Chinese shop in the pity:-. i.i——~-