5 JANUARY 1940, Page 6

Earthquake and Flood in Turkey

Every day during the last week the estimates of the killed or wounded in the disastrous Anatolian earthquake have been rising, and there is still insufficient material for estimating the full extent of the tragedy. To the horrors of the succession of quakes in the East are now added those of the floods in the Brusa and Smyrna regions. The President himself has been to the devastated city of Erzinjan to direct relief operations, but the state of the railways and the roads has made rescue work difficult in the outlying regions. British friends of Turkey have watched the amazing efforts which she has made in the last fifteen years to organise a modern civilisation on the basis of an old and outworn one, con- structing railways and roads, factories and irrigation works, and will feel that assistance both for the help of the victims and the repair of material damage should be generous. The admiration felt for Turkey by Britons who know her recent history has come to be shared by all their countrymen, owing to the recent example she has given to the world of high principle, courage and loyalty in international relations. In these days of common adversity help among friends should not be stinted, and our Government would certainly be expressing the feeling of the country if it substantially increased what is in the circumstances the not very im- pressive donation of £25,00o towards the cost of relief.