THE SERBIAN RELIEF FUND. (To THE EDITOR OF Tan "
SPECTATOR.")
"1 SIR,—May we ask for the hospitality of your columns on behalf of the Serbian Relief Fund? Of all the members of the Grand Alliance none has suffered more terribly than Serbia, and a Serbian officer was merely expressing the hitter truth when he said: "The Allies may restore Serbia, but the Serbian nation they cannot restore." At least a quarter of the entire population has perished, the men who survive are exiles or prisoners, and it is no longer possible to speak of a Serbian birth-rate. The work of mercy which the strong always: owe to the weak is doubly incumbent upon us. In charity, as in war, the Single Flout must be made a reality. The " Sacred Union" of the Allies demands that the needs of our friends in distress should receive the some attention as our men. And if there be any who would not admit this plea, they will surely at least admit that nothing which we can do to-day can adequately repay the services which Serbian heroism rendered to the Allied cause by holding Austria at bay for the first six supremely critical months of war. To-day, even with dwindling ranks, her courage is unabated; but she is even more dependent upon our help than in the past. The British nation has responded with even more than its habitual generosity to the appeals addressed to it by the Serbian Relief Fund; and to that response many thousands of Serbians un- doubtedly owe their lives. But the problem is a changing one. New needs have arisen, and with them an increasing drain upon our resources,' with the result that ere long we shall be forced by lack of funds to abandon important branches of our work, and —what is even more serious—shall find ourselves without reserves at the very moment when the vital work of reconstruction faces us. The Serbian Relief Fund therefore appeals with confidence to friends, old and new, to help it in what is at once a work of humanity and of genuine national importance. What is at stake is nothing lees than the future of a whole race.—We are, Sir, fie..
A. F. LONDON, President; FRANCIS CSROLNAL Boma, Archbishop of Westminster; CURZON or KEDLESTON; C. OXON.; H. H. ASQUITH; Posse LAIN; AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN; D. LLOYD GEOROS; HERBERT SAMUEL; WINSTON S. CHURCHILL; G. CAMPBELL-MORGAN; F. B. METER; N. BUXTON; jigger Ossnacg, Chairman; PLYMOUTH, Hon. Treasurer.
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