THE NEAR EAST REFUGEES.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—May I, while thanking you most warmly for the support which you were good enough to give to the Imperial War Relief Fund in your editorial notes last week, ask you to let me inform your readers that a series of meetings on the Near East Refugee Question will be addressed this month under the auspices of the All British Appeal by Dr. Nanscn, the High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations? These meetings will be in London (24th), Manchester (23rd), Liver- pool (22nd), Leeds (25th), Nottingham (21st), and Southamp- ton (26th). Particulars of the provincial meetings will be aanounced locally, but tickets, which will be free, for the Landon meeting at the Central Hall, Westminster, on the 24th inst., at 8.30 p.m., may be obtained from the offices of the 'Imperial War Relief Fund, General Buildings, Aldwych, W.C. 2.
Dr. Nansen's visit is made all the more necessary by the news which we have now received from Greece, where in Salonica are now being repeated the same scenes which took place in Athens and the Piraeus last autumn. The same chaos, the same misery and disease, hunger and destitution are there now. The refugees are living—if such an existence can be called living—on the beach and in the streets, without adequate clothing, shelter or food. On the testimony of a gentleman just returned from that city, the beaches from the cliff resembled superficially such scenes as are familiar to us on Bank Holidays at Margate; but with what a tragic difference !
It is still .summer, and existence under the open sky is perhaps tolerable were it not for the terrible malaria, from which at least fifty per cent. of these people are suffering. In the winter their plight will be dreadful indeed. The refugees cre arriving in Salonica faster than they can be dispersed to the interior;, the camps on the outskirts of the city are already overcrowded. With the further influx under the exchange of populations the conditions will be far more severe, both in this and other ports.
It is to meet these circumstances so inevitably threatened that Dr. Nansen will appeal for the help of all Christian Englishmen. Immediate help is urgent. To-day even we have received an urgent appeal from the Greek Minister of Refugees to feed an additional 25,000, which the funds of the British Relief Societies will not allow. -
If there are any of your readers who 'sympathise with the victims of this terrible calamity, and will not be able to listen to Dr. Nansen personally, I hope that they will show iheir sympathy with his mission by sending a donation for the prevention of a tragedy which will be possibly worse than that which awaited these wretched sufferers -laSt winttr.—I am,
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