SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 22

SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND

“■What is the Save the Children Fund?” This is the question which the new quarterly journal of the organisation sets itself to answer. . What children are to bs saved and why? The first issue of the third annual volume of The Record is intended to answer these inquiries. It places before it* readers a review of the work done by the society since its inception in the spring of 1919, and those who have contributed to this fund in the past will gain added interest in the work they have assisted from a persual of the current issue of the journal. Hitherto The Record has been a small bimonthly magazine. The new quarterly contains articles by Miss Eglantyne Jebb, who, with her sister, Mrs C. R. Buxton, founded the Save the Children Fund; by the Lady Muriel Paget, whose mission in Latvia New. Zealand supported for a considerable period; and by Miss Ethel Sidgwiek, the novelist, who deals with the relief work of the Save the Children Fund in Great Britain. There are some striking photographs, including one of a New Zealand kitchen at Saratov, Russia, and a map graphically indicates the fact that the fund has administered relief in no fewer than 22 States in Europe and the Near East. As it is assorted in the editorial foreword: “Throughout a varied career during three of the most fateful years in the history of Europe, the Save the Children Fund has held steadfastly to the principle of placing the needs of the child first, and, as Disraeli asserted, ‘the secret of success is constancy to purpose,’ this society may well have laid the foundations of a movement the like whereof secular history has never known.” It is recognised that all wars, just or unjust, disastrous or victorious, are waged against the child. Changing years bring new appeals. “We conclude this history,” writes Miss Jebb, in her article, “under the shadow of a new tragedy in the Near East, whereby, undoubtedly, many thousands of helpless children have become victims of hunger and disease and death. True to the principles and the practice which have been its own since its inception, the Save the Children Fund has lost no time in holding out the hand of succour to these little victims of the world's latest- crisis and once more it is its proud privilege to go forth into the field of strife and sorrow and disaster with life-saving gifts in its hands.”