ll THE RELIEF OF EUROPE he By REGINALD LIGHTWOOD
enemy, or of a piecemeal reoccupation, as Russia advances from the Plans for this must take account either of the sudden collapse of the
WHEN the occupied countries are freed from subjugation an immense task of relief and reconstruction will confront us. east and we invade from the south or west. The relief of the afflicted countries must follow an orderly plan based on the urgency, of their needs. Broadly speaking, food, clothing and materials for shelter are first needed, and those who bring immediate relief will always find urgent medical problems, so that doctors and nurses must be among the earliest to arrive.
Industry and agriculture will be halted in areas where fighting has been prolonged and where the earth has been scorched. Raw materials, labour, animals, seeds, farm implements and fertilisers will be needed to start them again. Shipping and transport must be provided and priorities settled. Countries with no coast line and no shipping, such as Czechoslovakia, will be in a serious position unless the control of Allied shipping continues while nations are getting on their feet. Except where the manufacture of food and other essentials are concerned, the starting of farms in rural districts will take priority over industry in towns. Man-power will be urgently required for this, and animals as well, especially horses for ploughing and draft. Where tractors and lorries are not available,
horses are essential to the farmer ; it is said to be impossible for a peasant and his wife to plough enough acreage by hand to sustain
themselves the year round. Scarcity of farm - animals will only be remedied gradually, and for a long time there will be a heavy demand for farm-tractors, lorries and stock. To set industries in motion again will require raw materials and transport, and in many cases factory premises will have to be rebuilt. In bringing labour back to productive work it is desirable to follow plans which are capable of leading on naturally and easily to social construction ; the relief worker and the economist must go hand in hand. Organisations for relief should make a point of helping in the establishment of stable local government, and when this is established they must retain confidence by giving no cause for jealousy during the time that relief Is being carried on by a foreign Power.
Large-scale relief, if it is to work smoothly and effectively, will have to be controlled and administered by a headquarters staff, and it is significant that, in America, Mr. Roosevelt has appointed a man of the calibre of Mr. H. H. Lehman, the retiring Mayor of New York, to direct relief work. To feed, clothe and re-house the
destitute, and to reorganise European, and perhaps some Eastern, nations, will be an almost superhuman task, taxing the administrative capacity and pooled resources of the world to the utmost. There are many technical aspects of post-war relief, and official committees of Allied representatives are now at work on them. Provisional estimates of food requirements for the first eighteen months after the war have been submitted by each of the Allied governments, and among other major problems to be worked out in detail are ,hipping and transport, priorities of raw materials, medical supplies, the re-starting of medical and social services, the handling of mass epidemics, and the operating of large schemes of feeding.
While the Allied Nations plan this humane and neressary work famine stalks through Greece, Poland, Western Russia and Spain. Post-war relief cannot help men and women who will die of starva- tion in 1943. We must not exaggerate horrors with the object of compelling people who are reluctant to face them, and it is urgent to collect more facts about the present famine and near-famine in these countries and others affected in less degree, even though com-
parisons between them are difficult for lack of data. For example, the true death:rate in Greece is unknown, for it is a common practice for the peopx to hide their dead because they fear to lose a meagre famine-ration ; official rates for death and diseases can no longer be obtained from France, Belgium and elsewhere ; and in more than one occupied country neutral observers are not permitted by the Nazis to study the conditions existing. Yet there is evidence of the increasing presence of diseases caused by hunger, as well as of famine in parts of Greece, Western Russia, Yugoslavia and Poland (especially among the remaining Jews), and there is widespread under-nutrition, if not actual famine, in Belgium, France, Holland and Norway. In Athens starvation-deaths were occurring at a rate of hundreds weekly, and a recent official estimate gives too,000 dead out of a population of one million. The whole of Greece has had a bad harvest this year, and it is estimated by the International Red Cross that 3+ millions out of its population of 6,zoo,000 must be fed on imported wheat. Because of their extreme need, and because of the gallantry of the Greeks, the Government has deliberately lifted the blockade, permitting 15,000 tons of wheat to enter each month. This allows about 5 ozs. of bread daily, and the average peace-time con- sumption is 27 ozs. As a result, since the late summer the situation has somewhat improved, but the International Red Cross estimates that another to,000 tons a month is necessary.
The state of the children is the most heartrending feature of the Greek famine. A report coming via Switzerland from the Athens Child Welfare Service stated that nine out of ten babies in the city died before they were six months old, because their mothers were too starved to feed them and there is virtually no milk for them in Greece. In the harrowing words of eye-witnesses, it is a common sight to see children and adults searching among refuse for some- thing to eat ; mothers carrying wasted infants in their arms, some- times already dead. One child said she had not eaten for four days and both her mother and brother had just died of hunger. The worst affected are the children who do not attesid the feeding-centres or welfare clinics, which in Athens and the Piraeus have been sub- stantially increased in number and feed 25,000 out of 45,000 infants with two meals a day. It is noteworthy that the local medical and welfare organisations are doing so well, and this work could not go on without the wonderful help they are receiving from the Red Cross organisations. But in spite of such efforts, some of the children have not the strength to beg: " . . . lying or crouching in the streets, many of them die and, seeming as though asleep, hours may pass before their companions realise they have died."
Our Government has been anything but indifferent to this terrible situation, as is shown by the relaxation of the blockade for the import of wheat. But to supply cereal food without milk and vitamins is little help to starving children, because it leads inevitably to severe rickets. Milk and vitamins are essential to save children in a pro- longed famine. Between humanitarian impulses and the need to enforce the blockade the Allied Nations face a terrible dilemma. Must we acquiesce in the slow starvation of our Greek ally in order to win the war in the shortest time? At present the Government's answer consists in giving " controlled relief," and, in addition to the wheat, navicerts have been issued for a hundred tons of dried milk monthly. The Famine Relief Committee urge that this amount is far too small and asks that dried milk and vitamins be sent in quantity sufficient only to save the lives of children under 16, nursing and expectant mothers and invalids—in round figures 2,000 tons per month. Dried milk and vitamins represent the maximum nourish- ment in the smallest shipping-space, and this makes provision of shipping and the control of distribution by the International and Swedish Red Cross a feasible undertaking.
The food situation is little better in Belgium and the condition of the children is pathetic, so that help on a similar scale is required as soon as satisfactory guarantees can be obtained. Three-quarters of the people are reduced to goo calories a day, which is less than half the minimum requirements of a man in sedentary occupation. Milk is so short that it is nearly all reserved for infants, and yet the infant mortality has risen alarmingly and a fourfold increase has now been reported. The situation is especially bad for the town school children, many of whom come to school without breakfast and faint from exhaustion during the day ; such is their apathy that afternoon lessons and physical exercises have been stopped. Thirty per cent. of these growing school children have actually lost weight. The incidence of tuberculosis at all ages has risen steeply, and the death- rate from this disease has apparently increased by So per cent. in Brussels and by 56 per cent. in the large towns. Further, famine oedema has been reported in school children as well as in adults.
A guarantee given by the enemy to the effect that "controlled " relief will not be actually used by him does not necessarily mean that he will obtain no benefit from it, because he may be the less inclined to send food into the country he occupies; but this is one of the many difficulties which must be faced. In the case of Belgium, the Famine Relief Committee urge that dried milk and vitamins should be sent for the use of the children in roughly the same amounts as for Greece. It is not yet known whether the first cargo of powdered milk has reached Greece, but our Government will soon know if the guarantees for its proper distribution are being carried out, and then it will be easier to see if similar help can be sent to Belgium.
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