WILL FOOD REACH THE STARVING RUSSIANS? [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sia,—Miss Fry rightly draws attention to the security of relief supplies sent to Northern Russia. A few days ago a party of us (including Mr. Balfour, Mr. Fisher, and Dr. Nansen) met in Geneva one of the principal American relief workers in the Near East, and amongst the most interesting facts submitted to us was that throughout Trans-Caucasia not wily the Bolshevik authorities, but Mustapha Kemal's armies, regarded supplies, whether in transit or in store, intended for the succour of women, children, and the sick, as sacred. This relief worker quoted, among other facts, that his organi- teflon had in one of its principal centres nearly two million dollars' worth of flour. The tides of Bolshevik, Kemaliet, and local forces, with their attacke, counter-attacks, "occupation," and " liberation," swept repeatedly through the city, yet not one kilo of the flour was touched in spite of the fact that the greatest need of each of these armies was flour and bread! The accumulation of facts upon this particular feature is happily sufficient now to demonstrate to the charitably dis- posed that goods sent to relieve the famine-stricken will reach those for whom such gifts are intended.
One other factor -has emerged recently—namely, that what. ever -views we may hold as to •the criminal folly (net wholly Bolshevik and Kemalist) by which this misery is being inten- sified, the practical exhibition of sympathy •by the Western world towards the sufferers of the Volga regions and Trans- Caucasia is becoming the most potent and enduring element in the supreme need of Russia and the Southern Republics— the reconstruction of human relationships. But whatever is done must be done quickly. Soon ports in the North will be frozen, but worse than this is the danger of roads and railways
becoming impassable. The "death carts' were busy in August in the Erivan and Georgian Republics, at least three months earlier than at any period since 1914, whilst Dr. Nansen expressed the opinion that the intensity of the famine was likely to prove greater in Trans-Caucasia than in the
Volga regions.—I am, Sir, &c., TORN H. HARRIS. The Glen, Crawley, Sussex.
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