"BRITAIN WILL NOT LET BELGIUM STARVE."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 45, 23 June 1915, Page 2

"BRITAIN WILL NOT LET BELGIUM STARVE."

[To The Editor Stratford Post.] Sir, —We have pledged our honour to restore Belgium. But Belgium is not a ward—it is a people; and the Belgian people is starving. If we let it perish during the process of restoration wo shall have grasped only the shadow of our task.

j Mr Hoover, Chairman of the neutral Commission for Relief in Belgium, and Mr Fraucqui, Chairman of the Committee in Brussels, tell us that “at least a million and a-half Belgians are now entirely destitute. ith the rapid exhaustion of the meat and 'vegetable supplies, there will probably j be, before harvest time, 2,500,000 Belgians who must be fed and clothed solely by charity. The remaining ■1,500,000 will get their pitiful daily allowance of bread through the Commission and will pay for it.” And they add: “Will you help us to keep the destitute alive?”

This neutral Commission, marvellously organised and administered, has hitherto succeeded in just keeping abreast of the situation, raising its funds from America, other neutral countries, and the British Colonies. But their funds are failing fast; and their needs are getting greater, it is in response to their desperate appeal that a National Committee for Belgian Relief has now been formed in our country, and every penny it collects will go without deduction into the hands of the neutral Commission, and through them to the starving Belgian people, in the form of food. So far Germany has kept her word not to filch what is sent for the Belgians; and the organisation of relief now makes it almost impossible for a German to touch one loaf of Belgian bread. The prAjent need is for £500,000 a month; tflb future need will he even greater, Our own exigencies are, \of course, tremendous; but what would they not he if Belgium had consulted her own material needs, had just chosen to save herself —instead of saving the Western world? With Belgium complacent to the German, Paris gone, Calais gone—it would have meant another year on to the years we have to fight, an extra live hundred million pounds oi money, an extra hundred thousand lives. If ever country owed debt, this country owes it to Belgium, to keep the breath in the bodies of her people. • Owes it, and must pay it. In standing to her guns Belgium saVed of course the whole world, for modern civilisation is built on nothing if on good faith and honorable obligation; but it is France and Britain before all that she has saved. France, however, has a terrific task in the rescue of her own ruined millions in the north. Thanks, perhaps, to ruined Belgium, Britain has not, may never have, to rescue and restore ruined towns and countryside.

| In return, what is Britain doing? Spending money and blood like water, to drive the Germans out of Belgium ? Yes! But let us be honest. We should have had to do that in any case, for our own interest. We are not thereby discharging the debts of gratitude, justice, and humanity. Giving hospitality to 200,000 Belgians? It is something, but not enough. Not nearly enough! So far we have not faced at all the desperate situation of Belgium itself; we have not, indeed, been asked to. From Canada, and Australia, with one-fifth of our population, help to the value of £150,000 a month has been coming in. ' From ourselves, practically nothing. But in future, all eyes are turning to us; it is we who are now asked to stay the march of death.

A penny of income tax in our country yields neadly three million pounds. If each one of us sets aside at once one penny from every pound of his income, this people is saved—this people more cruelly wronged than ever people were, this people to whom each one of us owes a debt, that we have not realised, that we cannot realise in its full proportions. If Belgium starves, the civilised world incurs a stain more black than we dare to contemplate; a little country gave itself for Civilisation. and Civilisation, Having the j means to save it, let it perish! We are dealing here not with words, ideals, land what not, we are dealing with j hunger—a very simple thing; if peoIpie are not fed, they die. No ultimate victories, vindications, and indemnities are of the least use to Belgians, starving now. If they are not kept alive on the shoulders of this country the richest country and that which ■ has gained most by Belgium’s suffering, the reproach will Ho heaviest. ' Verily it will! 1 There can be no exaggeration in the tale of Belgium’s trouble—for no words can ever begin to tell it as it should be told. There can be no exaggeration in the expression ol gratitude for what we owe her. If those wronged and ruined people had done nothing ioi ns j bow—how can we bear to let them ilack the mere sufficiency of life? No! Britain will not let starve. We have not known hitherto wlral was j needed of us in this race with death. Now we do know. We are too proud by far not to pay our debts. For this is a debt of honor, preceding oven tbe charity that begins at homo. The appeal of the National Committee has been issued. The Hon. Treasurer is Mr A. Shirley Bonn, M. 8., Trafalgar Buildings, Trafalgar Square, London. Fivery pound contributed goes to the Belgians in tbe form of food. The Cry of a brave people conn's across the sea. Pity, ungilded, feeds no starving bodies. Your truly, (Signed). JOHN GALSWORTHY. London, May 2nd, 1915.