The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1915. HELP FOR SERBIANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1915. HELP FOR SERBIANS.

The harrowing descriptions of the pitiful scenes of the sufferings which the women and children of Serbia are now undergoing, cannot fail to arouse a prompt and generous response to the urgent appeal for help emanating from the Serbian Minister in London. This brave nation has had to endure terrible trials and hardships, as well as suffer great losses at the hands of her enemies. In the first place Austria brought the full power of her hosts to decimate the Serbians, who fought against tremendous odds with magnificent courage and desperation. There came a short period of comparative quiet which enabled the Serbians to recuperate and reorganise. This was succeeded by a veritable avalanche of enemy forces in which Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria swept down upon the remnants of (the Serbian forces, and laid waste the homes of the people who were forced to flee from the invaders at a time when the rigors of winter had set in. We, in New Zealand, cannot realise the awful plight of these unfortunate and hard pressed people, having .to tramp over deep snow for days on end and exposed to the bitter mountain blasts without shelter of any kind. Let those who can, picture the deplorable condition of mothers struggling along with their children under such terrible circumstances —mothers and children falling by the wayside and being frozen to death; hundreds of thousands of refugees, homeless and foodless, traversing the Albanian desert, and hiding in the rocky hollows of Montenegro, dying by hundreds merely because it pleased the German autocrat to decree that the Serbians must be swept from his path because they interfered with his plans. The Kaiser should certainly go down in history as the ruthless and insistent slayer of women and children, and it is in this work that he professes to rely on the aid of the Deity. America and Britain are both taking prompt and generous action to relieve the Serbian victims of the Kaiser's fury. There must be many New Zealanders who would gladly contribute towards the relief of these starving people. The Serbian Minister tersely sums up the tion thus: "Help is real only if it comes quickly." The case needs no other plea, for if the condition of these outcasts does not appeal with sufficient force to the warm-hearted people of New Zealand, nothing that we can say will move them to that generous sacrifice which the plight of the Serbians should evoke. Those who can and will help should do so at onee.

respondence columns, but also by the deputation of ladies who waited on the Board and so eloquently and forcefully advocated the claims of the girls in relation to the building scheme. The financial position of the Board so far as ithe new buildings are concerned has already been fully explained. The building scheme involved an outlay of some £16,000, to meet which the Board had only £9500 available. So far no reply has been received from the Director of Education as to the ultimate reimbursement of the £4OOO promised, or as to the payment of interest thereon, but that did not prevent the Board fron' going ahead with the work. Mr. Hutchen propounded a scheme, the credit for which he gave to Mr. Monteath, for raising £OOOO by means of debentures bearing interest at six per cent, per annum, and having a currency limited to ten years, but redeemable earlier as money was available either from the Government or from the Board's funds. The Board wisely accepted this method of solving the difficulty of finance, and it was decided that the whole of the building programme, which embraces a new school and boarding-house for the girls and a new boarding-house for the boys, should forthwith be proceeded with. The debentures will be secured by a lien on the property on which the money is to be expended, and the Board, by placing their confidence in the public of the district to come forward and take up the debentures, have d«ne the best in their power to meet the financial difficulties with which they were faced. For the credit of Taranaki the response to the Board's proposal should be prompt and sufficient to cover the required sum. The High Schools are a great asset of the province aa well as of the town, and it should be the desire of all who can do so t# assist in placing the buildings on the most satisfactory basis. The decision to acquire an additional three acres and a half for the Girls' School is m«st commendable, and posterity will have good cause to speak well of the present Board of Governors who have acted in the best interests of those passi*" through the schools.