STARTING EUROPE.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 11, Issue 475, 21 April 1920, Page 7

STARTING EUROPE.

Dear Wahine,—lt is with great pleasure that I inform you of the. fact that Auckland is at last awakening: to a realisation of the sad conditions prevailing in.Central Europe, which fact was shown by the action of the Mayor in .railing a meeting of citizens last week to consider organising a campaign to raise funds for the relief of the starving children there.

It seems to mc a case of better .late than never, for, as long ago as last November, the Women's InternationalLeague received a communication from Miss Newcomb, secretary of the British Dominions Womens Citizens' Union telling them of the dire distress of women and children through starvation at that time. She also,sent leaflets showing pictures of the poor little victims, which the W.I.L. passed on to the National Council of Women, with an urgent appeal to them to help us, or let us help them, in organising a campaign to collect funds for their relief; but found that august body more interested in the general election campaign, which was on at that time, and any action to save the starving children was postponed until after the Christmas holidays, greatly to the disappointment of the W.I.L. delegates to the N.C.W., who lost no time in bringing the matter before them again at their first meeting in 1920, When it was decided to ask Mr. Massey if he could verify the report that the •British Government were subidising with £ for £ any money collected for the purpose of relieving the starving children, and, if so, would he grant tho N.C.W. permission to open a fund I here, he referred them to the Minister for Internal Affairs, who declined to grant permission. Therefore, thi3 influential body of women quietly, let the matter drop, and so let thousands of children die whom they might have saved by timely aid.

■ I sincerely hope the methods of the Auckland branch of the N.C/W. are not a sample of those adopted by the branches of that body - throughout New .Zealand. For a body of women like the N.C.W. to appeal to a body of men for permission before they dare do anything to save starving children seems to mc, to say the least of it, wicked.—A. DA. HAMILTON.