DISTRESS IN CHINA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 25, 22 October 1937, Page 4

DISTRESS IN CHINA

Red Cross and St. John's Appeal to Public HASTINGS FUND OPENED Money to send doctors, anaesthetics and medical supplies for thie relief of appalling distress wherever it may be needed in the SinoJapanese conflict is the subject of an urgeht appeaJl, launched joi'atly throughout New Zealand, by tbe St. John Ambulance Association and Red Oross Society. Representative committees are being set up and a Red Cross stamp sale conducted by interested V.A.D. helpers. The amount aimed at for collection in New Zealand is £10,000. Thousands Of refugees in China at this moment are destitute and many more thousands are woujided and dying because of the shortage of skilled help and supplies. The Mayor of Hastings, Mr G. A. Maddison, as president of the Hastings branch of the Red Cross Society, and the St. John Ambulance Association; in a message to readers of the HeraldTribune, eolicits tho- generosity of the people of Hastings and district in subscribing to the fund. Mr Maddison states that an urgent. appeal has been received by the New Zealand Red Cross Society from the Interuational Red Cross Committee, asking that surgeons, surgieal instruments, and accessories from New Zealand should be sent to Nanking as soon as possible. The Red Cross at Nanking is stated to be in desperate need of surgieal help, and the request has been made from Geneva following cable reports from Colonel de Watteville, the Internatioaal Committee 's representative at Nanking. Mr L. E. Gielgujd, ulider-secretary-general of the League of .Red Cross Societies, has explaiued that the Interuational Committee, ia callihg for help for the Chinese Red Cross, is impartially carrying out its resp6nsibilitics toward sufEering humanity, dirocting the assistance where the need is greatest. The committee has already ascertained that the Japanese lied Oross, to which it was equally prepared to ofl!er assistance, does not require aid from othef coUnSuccess in Brltain. -Reports of the successful efforts already being made in Great Britain to raise funds for medical relief in China liave appeared in the Press.^ Large appropriations have also been made by the Amorican Red Cross for the purpope. Following receipt of the Geneva message, the fojlowihg appeal is iesued by the New Zealand Red Cross Society and the St. John's Ambulance Society: "The terrible sutferiags which are being endured by the victims of - tho hostilities in the Far East cannot fail to arouse in all of us the desire to help in relieving them." . By responding to the cable appeal whick has just been received from the Intornational Red Cross Committee, eays Mr Maddison, the New Zealand Red Cross can give concrete expression. to the Bympathy ^vith these appalUng sufferings which is felt by every warmhearted man and woman in this country. It is not for the Red Cross to. condemn either party, but to bring help where it is most urgently needed. The New Zealand Red Cross Society and St. John's Ambulance Society accordingly appeals to all New Zealanders to enable it to meet the call by equipping surgeons and sending them for service iu China, and by sjlpplyiag the Red Cross at Nanking, with thelsurgical accessories which are so urgently needed there. The immediate need is for funds. Thousands of pounds will be needed to meet the expenses entailed, and patients will continue to die at Nanking for lack of adequate surgieal care if there is delay in finding the necessary inoney. The New Zealand appeal is for a sum of £10 000. The mayor or the town clerk of Hastings, or the Herald-Tribune, will be glad to receive and aoknowledge subscriptions for this worthy object.