FAMINE FIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1922, Page 7

FAMINE FIGHTING.

33 MILLIONS AFFECTED. FEARFUL CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA. HUGE INFANT MORTALITY. Miss Margaret Thorp, who is visiting New Zealand, can speak with authority on the conditions prevailing in Russia, since for two years past she has been engaged in relief work in the stricken areas of Central Europe and Russia on behalf of the Society of Friends. Since 1914 right up to the present time, the Friends have been doing voluntary work of this character in France, Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Germany, Austria and Russia, their activities in connection with the rehabilitation of the devastated regions of France and Belgium being particularly great. “At the present time,” stated Miss Thorp in the course, of an interview yesterday with a Wellington Times representative, “the Society of Friends is concentrating its efforts on Poland and Russia, more particularly Russia, where the famine is working such dire havoc. After working in Central Europe, I went right up into Russia in the autumn of last year, studied the child welfare work in Moscow and Petrograd, and then went right out east to Samara. I went with a numoer o f representa'tjves of leading English ana American newspapers, who were given every facility to investigate conditions. “BIGGEST DROUGHT SINCE 1391.”

“We found in the Volga provinca everything that has been reported of the appalling nature of the famine. After seven years of war has come the biggest drought since 1891, and that at a time when the Volga provinces were depleted o-f men, stock, machinery, horses, grain—practically everything. In 1891 four of these provinces were affected; this time twelve are involved. These provinces constitute a big fertile belt of grain-growing country, which supplied in normal times not only Russia, but many other p’Arts of the world; and 33 million people are now affected by the famine. When 1 was there the number affected was eighteen millions. They had only had inches of rain in the important months between October and June, and it was as if a great bush fire had swept throughout these provinces. 90 PER CENT. OF CHILDREN DEAD. “The ground was dry and black; the people were crowding out of the villages to the railway stations and to the Volga, trying to get away to the Ukraine, to the Caucasus, and to Siberia. Out in the little villages the people were making bread out of twigs and bark from the trees, and dried leaves mixed with acorns, dirt, and water. In the great province of Samara over 90 per cent, of the children under three years of age have died. Parents abandoned their children, leaving them at the various homes and hospitals, because they had no food left to give them. And Russian parents think the world of their children. They idolise them. But it is a most dreadful thing to watch a child starve. “SHOVELLED INTO PITS.” “Each house puts out its dead, and the carts take them out to the cemeteries, and shovel them into pits. They have neither the time nor the strength to do more. “The Society of Friends has a vact system of relief in Samara, particularly in Buzuluk. We had 35 voluntary workers there, nine of whom have already succumbed to typhus. They are working 16 hours a day for the people. When these workers are giving their lives to save the Russian children and help the people, it seems that at least those -far away in Australia and New Zealand should do their part by giving money to buy food. This country of yours knows practically nothing of the horror and the aftermath of war. Every guarantee can be given that the food reaches the people for whom it is intended. The Society of Friends has only lost i per cent, of everything it has sent to Russia. ,

“EATING CORPSES.” “The great gift of Australian meat by the Federal Government —£50,000 worth, of which part was given to our organisation, and all arrived safely—came at the most critical time, when the people, maddened by hunger, were going out to the cemeteries and eating the corpses there. . ’’The famine area is divided into large geographical districts, and each relief organisation has its specified district, so that there is no overlapping. The relief is under the supervision ot Dr. Nansen, as head of the Red Cross Society of Geneva, Sir Benjamin Robertson, the Indian famine expert sent out bv the British Government, and Mr. Hoover’s representatives from America. The Government and the health authorities give every assistance, and themselves are working day and night to combat the famine. I have just come from Australia, where, since my return -from Russia, I have been lecturing for the Russian Famine Appeal launched by Lady Forster, wife of His Excellency the G overn or -General. _ Australia has contributed about £150,000, including the Government’s gilt of meat; and in some of the States the Governments have given pound tor pound up to £lO,OOO. The countries of Europe have practically given all that they can spare. They themselves have suffered so much from the results ot the war.” .. . -