OUTCASTS AND REFUGEES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 29 December 1925, Page 5

OUTCASTS AND REFUGEES.

DR. NANSEN’S FAMILY. “GREAT HEART OF THE LEAGUE.” “Everything about Dr. Nansen is big. His person towers above his colleagues. But it is for the bigness of his heart that the members of the League of Nations call him the ‘Great heart of the League,’ ” writes Mr. J. H. Harris in a London journal, revealing an international romance of philanthropy'. “The biggest thing of all is his family'! The war had left derelict nearly 2,000,000 helpless men, women and children. The Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Groco-Turkish war together- made homeless the mass of humanity, and Nansen, to whom civilisation looked to father these unfortu-. nates, has not failed the children he adopted on behalf of the League of Nations.

“The first big section was 430,000 derelict soldiers scattered across Europe and Asia from Calais to Vladivostock —130,000 speaking every tongue from English to Chinese, few with shelter, none with decent clothes, many suffering from disease. Nansen took them by' the hand, reclothed them, and then restored them to tlieir homes at a total cost of less than £1 a head to the taxpayers of the nations. “Another little family adopted was 6000 refugees from the Russian Revolution who had sought a footing in Egypt, thereby costing Great Britain £1,250,000. a year. When Nansen agreed to add these to his ever-growing family the British- Government offered £150,000 towards the cost of resettlement. Nansen took them on and carried out the resettlement so economically that he handed back to the British Government £40,000. ‘’‘Those who talk glibly of revolution should not overlook the terrible aspect of refugees. The Russian Revolution led to a greater mass of postwar suffering for people of all classes than the Great War. Last year the number of starving Russian refugees outside Russia, alone exceeded 1,000,000. Largely' through the work of Nansen and Albert Thomas, this number has been reduced to 200,000, but they are the residue and the most difficult to place.

“‘Nansen and. Albert Thomas together managed to find employment Avithin six months of this for about IS,OOO refugees in European countries; but the pace is sloav, and thus Nansen has been compelled! to seek out remote, desolate places Avbere none can live to-day, butAV here thousands may live to-morroAv if money is forthcoming for reclaiming Avaste lands and SAvamps, and l for irrigating sandy plains by diverting the surplus waters of great rivers.

“Bight royally and generously several Governments are helping Nansen in his paternal efforts. France takes batches of these derelicts every week; Bulgaria gives free transport to. any of Nansen’s children passing through her territories; Canada has opened her ports to 10,000 of them, some of Avhom have been picked up in China and landed in Montreal; Mexico, although not a member of the Teague, i.s uoav beginning to receive small groups of refugees. “Thus the good work goes on, giving hope to the outcasts and succour to the suffering. But although the great family decreases day bv day, those that, remain are a terrible strain upon the father of the family—Nansen. ’ ’