[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I should like to
endorse every word of Mr. R. W. Hill's letter in your issue of Dece:nber 3oth, except that in the case which has come to my knowledge there is no question of emigration but only of maintenance in this country. The negotiations concerning this case began at Woburn House in a personal interview on November 24th. They are still proceed- ing six weeks later, while the widow—a woman of 57, in Vienna —still awaits her release in every circumstance of solitary helplessness. Her brother has just died after a period at Dachau. I need not take up your valuable space by giving the details. Many applicants must have the same story to tell.
The delay in this case is caused not by the obligations which the applicant is called upon to assume, for my friend has assumed them all, but to the disastrous and inevitable breakdown of the voluntary organisations, faced with a problem a hundredfold increased since they undertook it. I would echo the words of Mr. Hill—" The helpers are at hand, the funds already avail- able." Why then can they not be mobilised ? The public are anxiously waiting to know when and for what purpose the Baldwin Fund is to be disbursed. It was imagined that the first charge upon this fund would be to enable the relief organisations to function adequately. Is it too much to hope that the New Year will not pass without a solution of a situation which involves the only hope of security to thousands of our fellcw men, to many of them of life itself ?—Yours, &c.,
VICTORIA DE BUNSEN.
14 Lord North Street, Westminster, London, S.W. I.
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