THE POLISH VICTIMS RELIEF FUND. [To THE EDITOR OF Tug
" EirlarATOR.”] Stn,—The greater part of Polish territory being temporarily in the hands of the Germans, I find it necessary to publish certain extracts from letters lately written to myself by Henryk Sienkiewicz. The great Polish author, who is, with I. J. Paderewaki, joint President of the " Comae General de Secours pour les Victimee de la Guerreep Pologne," has desired me to assure the British public that the above Com- mittee (whose headquarters are at Vevey, Switzerland) and the Polish Victims Relief Fund (whose headquarters are in London) are "one and the same institution." He further writes to me as follows :— " Conforming with the restrictions imposed upon us by the British Committee as to the distribution, exclusively among the victims of the war in the provinces occupied by Russia, of the funds collected by them, we have hitherto acted in strict accord- ance with those directions, not a single penny having been sent to provinces occupied by either Austrians or Germans. Unfortu- nately the Rusgan armies are being forced to retreat further and further, and each day witnesses an extension of the Austro-German occupation. It is precisely over these territories that the greatest distress spreads itself. No words are able to describe it; the Austro-Gorman authorities systematically destroy factories, burn down cottages, and take away the last piece of bread and the last head of cattle from the legitimate owner. Children die from lack of proper nourishment, and spotted fever is spreading. There is no fear of the money sent from England ever falling into German or Austrian hands. We send money and food to the Polish Bishops and the local Committees formed exclusively of Poles. From the very beginning of the war the property of these Bishops and Committees has been freed from military requisition, and up till now this privilege has not been withdrawn. I am able to testify that no money, nor a single waggon of food, has ever been confiscated."
The fact that the Polish Victims Relief Fund, operating through the parent Committee at Vevey, is the only British fund able to reach all parts of Poland, the only British fund acting in collaboration with and recognized by the Poles themselves, added to the appalling fact that the civil popula- tion stands in ever-increasing peril of total starvation, obliges me to make a particularly solemn appeal to the British public on behalf of the Polish nation, whose loyalty to the cause of the Allies is well known, and whose suffering millions must not be left to starve because our common foe is in possession of their land.—I am, Sir, tux, 11 _Haymarket, S.W. LAURENCE ALMA. TADEMA..
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