PITIFUL BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 222, 26 February 1915, Page 3

PITIFUL BELGIUM.

. THE -CALL KM HELP. • To know how great is the need for help .1 e i.;;. e ouiy to r-'O-'i tliu .vi.o.w., uie descriptions and static ..-.a, .i'i).isia'd in English ami Aiu-rican nc.'s- | ,;:;ht.-i ami magazines, statements by re- ' !.able eye-witnesses and by commissions .uai have studied and been for them- . ..•Ives tiio things of which tliey spea.c to tin; world outbid'.;. Terrible tliey are be- • 11:11! belief ami where war is, all the reserves of'life e.re stripped ruthlessly away, and we reach the bedrock Of humanity. No woman in Now Zee-land could read of the sull'erinys of Belgian moth-rs and babies without a freezing of the blood. •'There have been 40,000 births in Belgium since the German came there; and there will be likely 40,000 ::iore >r, this winter of hardship and privation. How many of the newly-arrivei: iZfiti: have already died unnecessarily—undecorated, unsung victims of this war—no one will ever know,' says Mr Will Irwin, who is one of the American journalists Who have been sent to Belgium since it became a conquered country. 'How many of the 40,000 coming will die this winter,' lie continues in the Springfield Republican, 'depends upon America—how much food we send to the nursing momothers how much milk to the lia'oes.The lists of the dead issued by France and England and Germany are mounting day by day to a ghastly total. "But these take account only of the strong young men who have di X in the lighting." There might be mane lists of U'a uncounted dead:

"They do not iist the women wno, foolishly or ignorantly, sticking to th-.Jr homes, have died under the shell-fire of enemies or friends. They do not list the

weak and helpless who have liroppea out from the pathetic caravans of refugees to perish along the cSges of tlvi roads. They do not take list of those who are beginning to die by hunger in stricken Belgium. And finally, they do not list these babes of Belgium, dropping off before their lives have fairly begun, bi-ause there, is no milk." A DISINTEGRATED COUNTRY.

Nine newly-born babes snatched from j a burning,hospital in Antwerp formed, I says the Amsterdam Handel sblad» a I group befor-3 which men were moved to,/ tears on the arrival of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange of the little parto »- , the arms of the Red Cross, njirsss, W at had rescued them. In describing; t i !(! flight of the Belgian poor tow Mil f ood and safety in the Netjierlan.ds,, tKe correspondent of the HajiilglsJbM. 'goes on tQ say:— "Afterward, as I tramped for hamong them, ono tiling Impres- --">" strongly uppn my nmnwy-i- ■ a ltw of so, lUilliy Ut*-' 1 " "' , Wle , 10 i ge I ? Bn *' ' .. ..ooden shoes —childsho'.:s —that click-clacked on the cobblestones in;the characteristic short run of frightened people. My memory holds a whole collection of noises, but none quite so pathetic as the quick •ok-tok-tok' of these hordes of children trying, desperately with tlieir tired little legs to keep up with father and mother." Mr, J, H, White-house, in the Nineteenth Century, gives j. record of his personal experiences in Belgium: "The food supplies, which would ordinarily reach the civilian population, are being taken by the German troops for their iwn support. The poor, and many others, art-, without the necessaries of life, and the conditions of starvation grow more acute every day. Even where, as in some cases happens, there is a supply of wheat available, the peasants are not allowed to use their mills owing to the Belgian army. . "We are face to face," he continues, "with ft •• fact perhaps unique in the history of the world. The life of an entire, nation has' i hcon suspended; its armies arc ! driven to the borders of another counter, the- bulk of its civilian population are Tefugees. Of those who remain many are panic-stricken wanderers from village to village. ... No factories arc working, no trad? is done, agriculture is at an end. All is decay and ruin, and great as the ruin is at the -■nf-nt, it grows worse day by day." Kuoli is tlie pictur,. (part of it) of Belgium to-day. Nothing she. has suffered can ever be made good. The lives that have been poured out like, water for our benefit as well as for her own freedom have gnn,. for ever, and the nohh buildings which were a joy and an inspiration to all who had the understanding to see and to feel are, .nothing but'ruined piles of desolation, because Belgium fought for her freedom r.nd integrity, and by being tlif sacrifice has saved or helped to save England from a similar fate.