BALKAN RELIEF WORK

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8363, 25 February 1913, Page 2

BALKAN RELIEF WORK

Some account of the work that is be* ing done by the Balkan Belief Committee in Macedonia at the present moment may be of interest to the public, says the “Westminster Gazette.” Mr Nod Buxton, H. 8., and the Bev. Harold Buxton, who have recently returned from the ‘theatre of the war t hare supplied me, writes our Parliamentary correspondent, with some interesting details of the work. They were both present in Thraoe, and attended to the wounded after ,the battle of Kirk Kihessh. After the armistice was declared, Mr Harold Buxton went to Darna, in Macedoniai to distribute relief to the non-oombatanta in it district that had suffered terribly from the war. The population which he had to deal with lies between the Aegean and Bhodope, and is very largely Turkish.. All ithe able-bodied men had been carried off ,bv the Turkish army, and their wives and families were for the most part ignorant of their fata. The country had been swept first of all by the Turkish armies, then by the Bulgarians, who had to commandeer food, and lastly by bands of freebooters* Many of tho villages which Mr Harold Buxton visited were, he explained, in ruins, the women and children sheltering themselvee as best they could and suffering terribly from hunger and cold. The Belief Committee had first of all to find out the extent of the distress. This was dona by visiting the villages and summoning, the heads of the communities who inhabited them, the Greeks, the Bulgarians, and tjie Turks. The priest or the chief inhabitant was asked to furnish a report of the fannies in distress, and when this, was done relief tickets were issued, which could be exchanged for flour and blankets at relief centres. The work thus carried on has post £3OOO, and in another fortnight all this money will be exhausted. Mr Harold Buxton, who has been through the district distributing relief describe# the distress as very real. Bulgaria has her hands full in providing for her army and seeing after distress in her own country, which is very great, since nearly all the breadwinners are at the front. Macedonia is a oonguered province, and has only recently received some form of civil government. England, as Mr Noel Buxton points out, has a real responsibility to tho people of this unhappy provmce, who, but for our interference, would have been saved all the misery tney have suffered since the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, which thrust them back under Turkish domination. We have always assisted tho Macedonians, both Christian and Turk, and at the present moment the Balkan Belief Committee is assisting both Turk and Christian. Indeed, there are more Turks round Darna than Christians, «e that the money spent-on relief in this district has mainly gone to Turkish women and children. The great point, as Mr Harold Buxton insists, is to bear in mind that every £1 subscribed to the Balkan Belief Committee saves a life in Macedonia. It provides for ono Macedonian, a woman generally, or a child, for the winter,, for the standard of life is very low. As soon as the spring comes the people, with the men returning, will be able to plant and sow their crops, and to ■am the wherewithal to live by their abour. But who will plant the tooaoco if the families are left to die in .he meantime ? This tobacco makes the Egyptian cigarettes, which every smoker knows so well. Both clothes and noney are needed not only around Darna, "but throughout Macedonia, where a .sum of £60.000 oould easily tw .pent on relief.