Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, AUG, 24, 1938. A REFUGEE PROBLEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 227, 24 August 1938, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, AUG, 24, 1938. A REFUGEE PROBLEM.

To the intense sufferings of the Chinese people in the war zone* is to be added the plight of thousands of children who, haying lost their, parents, are cast upon the world they know as waifs and strays. Their circumstances deserve the sympathy of all countries whose sense of decency has been outraged by the unjust war Japan has forced upon her neighbour. Lately, a request has been made to the people of New Zealand to “adopt” as many as possible of these orphans Py contributing a few pounds which will save them from starvation by giving them refuge in a home where they can be educated. But any donation at all will be received with pleasure by the committee entrusted with this sad duty. The letter we published from Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and forwarded to the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Hon. W. E. Barnard), tells a poignant story of these hapless children, the victims of the cruel oppression and frightfulness of modern warfare. Where there is no limit to the barbaric cruelty of the form of warfare represented in air raids, the sufferings of the Don-combatant population must inevitably be terrible, she observes, and it requires no imagination to picture the terrible strain of the Chinese peqple, knowing the bombardments that awaited them and then to suffer agonising torture. In the regions the Japanese have penetrated, Madame Chiang Kai-shek observes, waifs and strays abound, and as far as possible, they are being collected and given asylum. The task is one of great magnitude for, she says, these orphans have run wild in a desperate effort to find the parents who have been lost to them, or food to live upon. “Representatives are sent to the battle front and to the lines along which the refugees are fleeing . to collect these forlorn little children. We bring them to the central stations, clean them, clothe them, and distribute them among existing missionary orphanages, or send them to the Western Provinces to be cared for in institutions which the Government is creating. We are trying to collect money to take care of dU.UtJU children to begin with. The address given at Feilding this week bv the wife of the Chinese Consul (Madame Feng Wang), who was supported by Mrs Barnard, adds to the poiguancy of the story. A million and a half children have been rendered homeless in this tragedy of unusual magnitude”; the Japanese, she added, had been guilty of deliberately slaughtering many hundreds, and many more had been shipped to J a pan to become slaves. It is to the credit

of China that she is moving energetically towards the salvation of these hapless young people, who properly directed at this critical time in their lives, fed, clothed, and educated, will be able to emerge as good citizens to play a worthy part in the rebuilding of their country as the years progress. The story that Madame Chiang Kai-shek has told, reinforced by Madame Feng Wang’s eloquent discourses, must compel the people of this country to take a larger interest in China’s small refugees. That’it has already been of a practical nature is shown by the fact that a considerable sum of money has been sent forward to the central organisation in China. But a great, deal more is required to make a great human effort successful, and China hopes not to look in vain-to the great democratic countries. The appeal is one to arouse the keenest sympathy. What China is to-day enduring from frightfulness in the air may quite conceivably be the lot of Western people unless sanity rules among the nations.