HL Deb 23 February 1922 vol 49 cc213-31

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY rose to call attention to the reported facts respecting the gravity of the famine in Russia; and to ask whether His Majesty's Government is now able to make any statement as to possibilities in the matter.

His Grace said: My Lords, I desire to call attention for a few minutes to the facts now in our possession—I think we may call them faets—with regard to the famine in Russia, and to ascertain whether ally action in connection with those facts is likely now to be taken by His Majesty's Government, or whether they can give us some anticipation of what is likely to be the outcome of the reports which are in our hands. For many months we have all been aware that we were living in the presence of one of the most appalling calamities—if calamity is a word to be used for a thing so long drawn out—that the world has ever known. Day by day, while we were about our ordinary work, the people of Russia have been literally dying by thousands, and the ghastliness of the facts of the famine area is simply beyond words.

I do not propose to-night—there is no object in doing so—to dwell upon the horrors which have been depicted to us. Whether we take the detailed reports, now in our hands, by experts whose words cannot possibly be disputed, or whether we take the newspaper pictures, which many thought to be exaggerated, but which are now, I think, proving to have been practically fair pictures of what was taking place, the unspeakable horrors that are prevailing over a vast area of country are almost impossible to put into words—people living upon pounded grass, and the bark of trees, and refuse of every kind, and even unnameable horrors much worse than that, I am afraid, taking place beyond question! The picture is so awful a one that—as is always so in extreme eases—we are almost tempted to regard it as fiction rather than fact, or as though it referred to some other age or period than our own.

And we may add that for a long time past to many of us—to me at least—the horror of it all has been even enhanced by a kind of mystery and uncertainty and cloud Which has overhung it all, and the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining accurate facts upon which we could rely—a difficulty, I suppose, due, first, to the fact that the sources from which reports came were not on either side unprejudiced; and, secondly, to the very important fact that those who were endeavouring to give reports had no real skill or aptitude for generalisation on a great scale, but were apt, from what had just been before their eyes, to picture what they thought must be true elsewhere.

Now a change has come, the veil has been to a large extent lifted, the facts have been put before us by those who were not only anxious to give us a true picture, but who were also competent to judge about it and to generalise with thoughtfulness, and on a basis of wide experience. There have been several noteworthy men, foremost among them two, Dr. Nansen and Sir Benjamin Robertson. Dr. Nansen, who, of course, is a man of heroic adventures, of noble and eager philanthropy, and of considerable scientific knowledge, is not a man who has, or claims, any expert knowledge of famine administration or famine problems, which have their own character and their own history, but a man whose word can always be listened to, not merely with respect, but with confidence that what he says is what is true.

Now we have, in addition to that, the evidence before us in detail given by Sir Benjamin Robertson, who, I imagine, is the very best man in the world to give us that evidence, who has visited, as Dr. Nansen did, a great part of the areas affected, and who has brought to bear upon his visits an experience which, I imagine, is almost unrivalled in the world, of the administration of famine areas at times of extreme distress and difficulty. His experience has, of course, been of India. But anyone who has read with care what he has said, or who has seen him and conversed with him, will know how he has been constantly on his guard lest he should interpret Russian facts by Indian experience, and has compared the two with a skill which is very effective in its result.

These fearless men have done an enormous service to us at this time. They are fearless, because we have always to remember that this is not merely a very difficult and trying, and almost terrible, journey to take, but that the difficulties at the present moment, with typhus raging, are enhanced by the imminent peril of death almost any day. We have already lost some of our noblest men and women by the ravages of typhus. I would note that remarkable man, Dr. Reginald Farrar, who, after perfectly splendid service in Africa and Canada and on the Continent during the war, laid down his life the other day owing to typhus when trying to grapple with the famine problem. There are many more. These men therefore, who have done this work for us, have done it not merely in the face of unexampled difficulty, but of the most constant personal peril.

These reports now in our hands, as it seems to me, make a difference to the whole situation. Hitherto some of us (at least, I speak for myself) have felt this difficulty in dealing with the Russian famine problem its sheer vastness which was so bewildering, its complexity which was very great, indeed, and the lack of a practical objective of something which we saw could really be effectively done was constantly hindering what might otherwise have been an enthusiastic desire to give help. There has been a lack of the sense of hope in anything we could try to do, because it all seemed so futile and feckless and poor, like throwing a pail of water a great conflagration. It might for a moment affect a few yards of it and the rest be left to go on as before. And though many of us have been doing our very best to meet the difficulty and to let the real facts stand out before the world, we have found wherein the difficulty of doing so necessarily lay.

Now, it seems to me, the position is changed. We have set before us—I speak specially of Sir Benjamin Robertson's report—a fairly clear objective as to what could be clone, with a definite plan for doing it more or less worked out, with the prospect of a real possibility of practical business-like relief-giving, and a definite estimate based on knowledge and experience as to the kind of sum of money that is required for doing it. All that, as it seems to me, puts the situation in a different light from that in which it has been before, and there is upon us, as I think, a somewhat increased responsibility.

If I understand the question aright—and I will be brief in indicating what I understand about it—it is roughly this. The Volga basin, a huge area of an oval shape, putting it in the roughest way, with an area of at least 1,000 miles from north to south, is the region wherein the acute famine conditions have subsisted for a long time. The southern part at least of that area has been. I suppose, about the finest wheat-producing area in the world, a region front which great supplies were exported for ourselves and for others, and which is still capable of producing crops of wheat of almost unexampled value. Within that great area some millions of people are living, of whom it is calculated that about fifteen millions or sixteen millions are literally starving to death.

I do not go into the causes of that condition of things. The causes of the famine are differently described by different people, and I do not want to dwell upon them now. It seems perfectly clear, front the concurrent testimony of various competent people, that, except in one very small portion of the area, the famine is not due, as has so often been stated, to time ravages of war. That region was not overrun by the Armies fighting against the Bolsheviks, and was not, save as to a very small port ion of it, destroyed by them. It is due, year after year, to the system of requisition adopted by the Soviet Government, which took half the produce of the fields for public services, or supposed public services, for which they intended to use it. Of 4,000 pools, or whatever the quantity was, grown by a farmer or peasant in the area, they requisitioned 2,000 poods, leaving a similar quantity to the grower.

The consequence was that the farmer or peasant determined that the following year he would only grow half as much, and he did that, expecting to be left with it, but the half was again requisitioned. Then he determined to reduce the quantity by half the next year, and the same thing happened. It was found that the position became intolerable, and the amount of work the people were able to do for 1921 was extremely small. Then came the awful drought, and the crops went to nothing at all. If we are to find a cause for it. I suppose it would be mainly in the requisitions of which I have spoken.

A more pathetic picture can hardly be imagined than that which is drawn by Sir Benjamin Robertson in one or other of his reports. I forget whether it is in the report of the journey or in what he calls the "Travel Notes." It is a picture of huge cranes and gigantic elevators covering the region, and towering over a barren land. There are all these things for the moving, the raising, and the carrying of the corn, of which there is not a vestige to be seen, and the presence of those gigantic implements emphasises the rather ghastly picture.

In the area of relief, the American society have taken over and made themselves fairly responsible, and are carrying out their responsibility, for something like seven-eighths of the necessitous, leaving one-eighth to the British relief forces. I shall not go into details about the others. Sweden and other countries are giving minor aid. But we might say, roughly, that for seven-eighths of that area America has made herself responsible, leaving one-eighth to others. The authorities of the United States have voted, not. as a loan but as a gift, more than £4,000,000—not dollars, but pounds—for the carrying out of the American society's work, and it is being carried out.

The Americans are not touching the one-eighth which is left to us, because we have undertaken to do, and are doing, our best for it. In that area there are about 1,250,000 people, including adults, and it is upon that area that we are now urged to concentrate all our attention. For the most part we have helped children only. The Americans, who helped children only at first, are now finding that that is a mistaken policy, and are adopting the policy which Sir Benjamin Robertson so eloquently advocates—that, even if it means taking a smaller area, you should take care of the adults as well as of the children. To my mind, nothing is more pathetic than the picture he draws of tens of thousands of little children crowding into the relief agencies and collecting places, unable to say whence they came, sometimes knowing nothing more than their names, sometimes ignorant alike of names and parentage, brought up, from our point of view, under the utterly unsuitable arrangements of the Soviet Government and under conditions utterly different from anything that would correspond to home life anywhere else.

For these and other reasons. Sir Benjamin Robertson urges, in unanswerable terms, as it seems to me, that even if we have to limit the area with which we are dealing, we should take care that we do not confine ourselves to that particular bit of work to keeping the children alive while their parents are lying, dying or dead, around the mom in which the children are being fed—but that we take the adults as well its tire children and do what we tall for both. If any of your Lordships who have not gone into the matter will read what Sir Benjamin Robertson says in his report on that subject you will find it is not merely a striking description but an unanswerable bit of evidence as to what ought to be the nature of our policy.

The whole of it is a ghastly and terrible picture. Relief is going into the area which is served by the Americans and the smaller one served by ourselves, and I think we may say that there are a few facts which are, I will not say cheering—that is a word one can rail use in such a connection—but alleviating to some extent the horror of the situation, and which stand out slightly on the other side. There is, first, the fact, now I think unchallengeably proved, that there is no kind of pilfering or distraction to other objects of the food or the money that is being sent for that relief. What leaves this country or America to go to the famine-stricken area, gets there. It gets to the distributors, so far as the transport makes it possible. There may be delay before the transport is able to bring it to its destination, but it does get there, anti is not pilfered. It is therefore not being diverted from the purpose for which it is sent, and I think it is important that that fact should be known.

The second point is the way in which the efficiency of the distributing agencies has impressed itself upon the skilled observers, and especially that of the agency being worked on behalf of the Society of Friends by Mr. Watts and that worked for the Saving of the Children Fund by Mr. Webster. Both these gentlemen seem to be of quite singular capacity for their task, in the view of one so experienced in supervising work of this kind as Sir Benjamin Robertson. He says that we could not have found two men more capable of overcoming the enormous difficulties which have to be met with in the areas to which the money goes. Moreover, there is the fact that the Soviet Government is co-operating to the best of its power in bringing the relief in an appropriate way by contributing the vitally important element of seed corn, which is not to be eaten but is to be put in the ground for next year.

The American system, as some of your Lordships who have followed the facts know, is this. Maize in great quantities is given for food, and one train carrying great loads of maize goes into a particular area, and is followed there by another train carrying the seed corn. To my mind, it is a very striking fact, noted by all these observers, that these unhappy peasants, reduced as they are to the verge of starvation, even if they have nothing to eat at all, are ready to sow the corn rather than eat it, so well do they realise the needs of the coming year. I should have expected to have heard that the case would be otherwise, in view of the desperate condition to which they are reduced. I have cross-examined the two men of whom I have spoken as to what they have to say about it, and their reply is that it is amazing to see the self-restraint that the people show in being ready to use for seed what is given for seed instead of using it for the purpose of satisfying their desperate hunger. That point has been carefully considered, and is admitted by those who are giving the relief.

What is needed, in order that Great Britain may do that part which has been taken over more or less by Great Britain? According to Sir Benjamin Robertson, £500,000 would not do everything that is desired, but its expenditure would produce an incalculable improvement upon what will be the condition of affairs in the absence of the expenditure of such a sum. Apparently, we have at present in every area a certain amount of stores, some given by His Majesty's Government. Whether it was the best kind of stores for the purpose or not I cannot say, but stores were given of different kinds, and they are there with a good deal else in addition. It is fortunate that they are there, because, within about three weeks from now begins the period of five weeks during which there is a thaw. In that period no transport at all is possible. The position was described by someone in these words: "Railway sleepers are floating in treacle." The railways, therefore, are in a hopeless condition during that period, and transport is impossible. Therefore, as quickly as possible, within the next week or two, we have to get stores for the people. The great object is to get into the American area the stores required to keep the people going till the middle of April. As regards our area, after the middle of April we shall have to take over new responsibilities for maintaining the people until the harvest, which will not be till the middle of August.

From April to August, therefore, we shall have to take over the responsibility of looking after the people to the best of our power. But according to this most wise and expert observer we can, with the help that I have indicated, or something like it, prolong the feeding of the children. We are now feeding about 320,000 children, and also as many adults as possible, say 500,000 or 600,000. If we had the necessary money we could get the work for future relief organised, and the administrators on the spot. This, of course, only means doing the best we can towards meeting the need, which is far greater than we can properly cope with, but it does mean meeting the need to a very considerable extent. A very large number, unhappily, must die, but by concentration at one particular area, and by wise management according to the scheme which is now put on paper for us, we can attain an enormous result of good for that great area in the preservation of life.

I desire to know whether His Majesty's Government can tell us whether they can see their way to adopt any practical steps in leadership or whether they have any suggestion to make of a substantial grant to supplement voluntary aid and so help us to do what we feel can be done. I cannot but think that the moment is one that I ought not to let pass without at least asking that question, and learning that it has been fully considered, as I have no doubt is the case. This is not the moment or the occasion for making an appeal. Every one of your Lordships feels as strongly as I do what our obligations are in these matters—our obligation for the sake of this unhappy people, and our obligation for the sake of the health of Europe, for famine breeds pestilences which go far beyond the famine area. There are also to be considered the possibilities of future commer- cial relations and trade, but I feel far more deeply and strongly what is due on the ground of the elementary principles of common humanity and of Christendom, for which we care. I desire to ask the Question in my name.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR

My Lords, I wish, in a very few words, to supplement something that was said by the most rev. Primate when he alluded to the mystery or uncertainty which has surrounded this subject. I am afraid the uncertainty is not all yet cleared away. For example, a short time ago a statement appeared in the Press headed, I am sorry to say, in some papers, with the line:"Doctor Nansen's Reward." The statement went on to say that Dr. Nansen had become an honorary member of the Soviet. That statement was evidently accepted by a number of people, including Mr. Nabokoff, who wrote to point out that Dr. Nansen had been entrusted by the League of Nations with the mission of taking to their homes a large number of Russian refugees. The inference was that he was disqualified in a sense for carrying out this work because he had become member of the Soviet. What were the facts I They were given in a letter written by Dr. Nansen to The Times on February 14, in which he states that he never heard a word about becoming an honorary member of the Soviet, and that if he had received any such invitation he would have at once felt it necessary to decline it, because in his work he must be dissociated from the politics of any country.

I should add that Mr. Nabokoff did not allude to a fact, which perhaps he did not know but which I shall now state to your Lordships, and I think an apology from him would be appropriate in regard to it. The facts are that Dr. Nansen has transferred 385,000 Russian refugees to their homes at a cost of about £400,000. I have no doubt that these facts are known to the Department of the noble Marquess who leads the House. Clothing was much needed, and 60,000 suits of clothing were sent to the most needy of these refugees. That was a great work, accomplished, I am told, without a single failure; and it is an example of the capacity and reliability that Dr. Nansen has shown throughout. It is a monstrous thing that his work should have been defamed and misrepresented. Perhaps defamed is too strong a word; I will say discredited.

After what the most rev. Primate has said I will not dilate upon that aspect of the matter, except to say that in The Times to-day there is a further and most important supplementary statement in support of what has been done by the various societies. There is a pregnant sentence at the end of that statement where allusion is made to the economic aspect. We are told that Europe cannot afford to help these starving people; I say that Europe cannot afford to neglect them. The credit of this country is really at stake. It is monstrous that the people should be misled by such statements. They emanate, not within the borders of our own country, but elsewhere, from people who are so determined to discredit the present affairs in Russia that they say: "Let the people die in order to bring discredit on the Soviet Government."

I think this frightful devastation of human life makes a claim upon the whole human race, and more especially upon those who are expected to take the lead. We have the example of the United States with its £5,000,000 worth of food sent. Our own Prime Minister sent a sympathetic message in support of the Famine Relief Fund and alluded to the fact that something had been done already. I think that was a reference to about £100,000 worth of stores. That is something, but when we have been told of the urgency of relief I hope the Government will consider—especially as the Prime Minister has expressed his sympathy, and given his imprimatur to the need for relief—that this further movement should be carried out quickly and on an ample scale. Surely £2,000,000 is not too much. That sum would at any rate do a great deal of good on the spot and clear the character of our country in regard to the accusation of lack of concern, and of neglect, in this matter.

LORD EMMOTT

My Lords, I need not add anything to what has been so well said by the most rev. Primate as to the terrible character of the calamity in the Volga area in Russia at the present time. I want rather to deal with one or two practical matters from my own standpoint as Chairman of one of the funds specially interested in the relief of the victims of the famine. I am not without hope, let me say, that the three funds specially interested in this work may practically pool their efforts and so get away from a feeling of competition between them which is undesirable and un- satisfactory. What we want to do is to carry out, as adequately as possible, in the two districts where British relief organisations are now working, the relief of children and adults. One would be only too glad to extend that work, but I am afraid that is all we can do at the moment if we are to carry it out adequately. Hitherto, the relief given has been almost entirely to children, until the last few weeks. In a famine of this intensity it is as essential to feed adults—it is really almost more necessary—as to feed children, if you wish to keep alive the population that can till the ground next year. That is a practically obvious point.

With £400,000 from public and private sources we can keep the children alive who have been fed, and keep a good many of the adults alive in those two districts. With £600,000 we could do the work pretty adequately. That is a comparatively small matter—£600,000—when put in relation to the great American effort. America is giving £6,000,000; about £2,000,000 privately, and £4,000,000 as a Government grant. We could get a considerable portion of the money we want by means of private charity, but the springs of private charity would flow touch more freely if the Government could, and would, assist us in the matter. Therefore, I join in the appeal which the most rev. Primate said he did not make, but which he did make inferentially, for Government assistance, Sir Benjamin Robertson is, willing to give his services in controlling the relief, provided we can get adequate assistance.

I will not deal with some of the objections raised. There can be no question now that the supplies are reaching the victims of the famine. Again, these people whom we are helping are the victims of the famine, and are not responsible for the famine. These peasants, and their fellows, have been opponents of the Communistic régime which has been the governing factor in Russia during the last four or five years. It is they who have brought it practically to an end, because all the tenets of Bolshevism are now given up in practice by the Soviet Government itself. As the most rev. Primate, and also the Marquess of Aberdeen, pointed out, it is to our interest to help these people. We have a direct British interest in keeping the peasants of the Volga region alive until they can grow the harvests they used to grow in the past, and which were one of the most important sources of food supply to this country and other European countries.

If the peasants are to be allowed to die on an immense scale—and millions must die in any case—the reconstruction of Europe is pro tanto delayed, and there is no question more vital to the cure of Unemployment here than keeping as many as possible of these poor people alive in order that the country may not become a desert. Therefore, on the ground of humanity and self-interest I say that we ought to assist in this work. I really cannot understand the idea which seems to be held that this country, and Europe at huge, can dissociate itself from a direct interest in the matter. Behind this famine lurks the appalling danger of a famine next year on an immensely more widespread and terrible scale, and also the danger of the awful pestilences which are raging in Russia at the present moment.

I said, however, that. I rose rather for a severely practical purpose. As the Chairman of the Russian Famine Relief Fund, responsible for the proper disposal of the stores given by the Government to the British Red Cross and then handed by them to us, I do not want to take too much the attitude of looking a gift horse in the mouth, but there are seine facts that I think I ought to make known to your Lordships. A good many of these stores were useless from the point of view of famine relief. We received about £30,000 worth of foodstuffs; we were to have received, I think. £31,000 or £35,000 worth but we have not been able to get some £4,000 worth of them. We have to collect them at terrible expense from Army damps, and pay all the freight charges to send them out to Russia. Among those stores were 200 tons of lime juice, valued at £2,100; and lime juice, after all, cannot bring great physical relief or moral comfort to people who are dying from starvation. Pork and beans and tinned beef were less useful than grain, but still they had their value front the point of view of feeding adults.

With regard to the balance of what was said by the Disposals Board to be worth £100,000, we collected £21,000 worth of stores in Egypt and brought to Constantinople, and they consisted of moth-eaten clothing and second-hand things, with some medical comforts. We found that it was really so little use sending them to Russia that we arranged to divert them for the purpose of the refugees in the Constantinople district—of course, with the consent of His Majesty's Government. Those stores, which were said to be worth £21,000, were valued by Lloyds at £8,500. The remainder—£41,000 worth, according to the Disposals Board valuation—were handed over to us and consisted of medical drugs, hospital equipment and so on. It is impossible for us to value these stores, but I am credibly informed that many of the drags are what is known as "time-expired." They were handed over to us only yesterday, I think, after two and a half months' delay. There are some 300 tons; I suppose it will cost at least £1,000 to send them to Russia, and we have had two or three of the staff waiting to receive them for two or three months. One feels that, from the point of view of famine relief something more digestible is required than operating tables, of which there are a good many in this medical equipment.

I am afraid I am looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I must say quite frankly that £40,000 or £50,000 in cash would have been infinitely more useful than this nominal gift of £100,000 worth of goods, which even on the Disposals Boards' valuation have never reached that sum. I am sure I have only to mention this to the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House, to ensure that his Department, the officials of which I have to thank for the most valuable help in regard to this matter, will do its best to induce the Disposals Board to bring up the value of the gift made to us to something really like £100,000. I say £100,000, although the figure of £200,000 was once mentioned. I venture to urge that, if His Majesty's Government ever in the future offer us further stores, they will consult the Famine Relief Organisation or the British Red Cross as to the stores in their possession which are most suitable for the purpose of famine relief. What we really want are grain, beans, rice, and commodities of that kind. They are infinitely more useful for our purpose than anything else.

LORD WEARDALE

My Lords, before the noble Marquess answers the Question put to him I may perhaps supplement what my noble friend has said from the point of view of the Save the Children Fund. This Fund was the first in the field to take up this question of famine relief in Russia, and I think we may claim that it has worked with remarkable efficiency, because we chose highly competent agents—Sir Benjamin Robertson has borne testimony to their competency—men who spoke Russian, which was an all-important accomplishment, and under their charge we despatched to Russia, before the navigation closed, enough food to carry on our operations in the Saratov district until the end of April or the beginning of May. We have made a great effort in accomplishing that, and I am glad to know that Sir Benjamin Robertson, who did not go out on our behalf but whose immense authority we quite recognise, has borne distinct testimony to the way in which our work has been accomplished.

I should like to ask the noble Marquess this question. We, by voluntary effort—and voluntary effort is a great strain and trouble in these days—have been enabled to find food for some 250,000 children in the Saratov district. We found food sufficient until possibly the middle of May, but after that period we really do not know whether we shall be able to carry on, and I should like now to ask His Majesty's Government directly whether they would like to see our work entirely lost, as it would be by these unfortunate children sinking back into starvation from the want of the very few hundred thousand pounds which might very readily be given for this purpose. I agree that the State is not at present in a very flourishing condition. It is difficult—almost impossible—to expect Parliament to devote large sums of money for any purpose whatever. We have the "Geddes axe," and many things of that kind, and I agree that it must be repugnant to the Government to make any demand upon Parliament for funds. But I regard this as a very exceptional case. You have before you the noble example of America, which has granted £4,000,000 sterling for this purpose, which is conducting relief operations on an immense scale and, as I am given to understand, conducting them very efficiently. All that we ask is that the British Government should supplement the efforts of voluntary societies in order to, carry us through the famine period.

I agree with my noble friend that we shall not see the end of the evil even then, because we are faced with famine conditions in Russia next year. I have known Russia well for forty years, and I naturally speak with some knowledge. I say most dis- tinctly that the Russian peasants are worthy of all praise for the splendid patience that they have shown under unexampled sufferings. I think it would well become the British Parliament to make a grant of a moderate amount—I do not ask for a large amount—to enable us to continue, in the area which has been assigned to us, the work which is being very ably carried on at the present time.

THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON

My Lords, I hope that the extent of the interest which is felt in this subject both by Parliament and the public at large will not be measured by the rather scanty audience that happens to be here this afternoon. I am convinced that that is not the case, because even were we not personally familiar with the details that have been put before us by the various speakers there is a general sense in the community at large that this is a terrible, devastating, almost unprecedented crisis in the history of the populations of Eastern Europe, and there is a very wide fountain of sympathy always springing in this country, not merely for distress in general, but for the victims of this particular catastrophe.

With almost everything that has fallen from the previous speakers I am personally in agreement, and I was very glad to hear the case stated with so much amplitude and precision by the most rev. Primate. A good many people will not have the opportunity of coming across the report of Sir Benjamin Robertson, which I believe was only issued to-day, but a full summary of all that is contained in that document, with a good deal of most interesting matter, is contained in the speech of the most rev. Primate, and those who read our proceedings—I wish they were more in number than I believe them to be—can find in the report of his speech, and the speeches of those who followed him, a very full account of the situation as it now is. So full have been these accounts that I do not think I need say anything, in the few observations which I have to make, about the area over which the suffering extends, nor about the intensity of the visitation, which is very great and lamentable, nor about the activities of the various agencies, other than our own, which have been endeavouring to cope with it. All honour to the generosity of the American Government, who have given this large sum—20,000,000 dollars I have been told it is—whose agency, working under the inspiration of Mr. Hoover at home and of Colonel Haskill out in Russia itself, has accomplished, and is accomplishing, work of enormous magnitude, and on the whole of remarkable and conspicuous success.

I pass that by for the moment, because what we are concerned with here are the activities of our own people and of the various British organisations which are devoting themselves to the same task. We have heard to-night from the spokesmen of more than one of these bodies. Lord Emmott, for instance, spoke as Chairman of the Russian Famine Relief Fund, and if he is dissatisfied with the nature of the material with which he has had to deal, and I am afraid he has some reason for being so, at any rate no one is dissatisfied with the way in which his fund, and more particularly he himself, have devoted themselves to the management of the task which they have undertaken. Now about these stores. It always seems that in our country the administration of charity is accompanied and disfigured by stupidity of the grossest description, and so it has been in this case, and although the matter of the lime juice is a small matter—I think only £2,000 in value—still it is a very stupid mistake to have made. I gather also that in some respects the same may be said of other stores, which came from Egypt or Constantinople, and which were either inferior in character or useless. I imagine that the Disposals Board is the body responsible for these errors, if indeed they have been, as I am afraid they have been, committed, and I can only say that I will act as suggested by the noble Lord, and put myself in communication with those persons and endeavour to see whether there are not more serviceable stores available; and anything that it is in my power to effect to implement the contributions that have already been made in a better fashion I will gladly undertake.

Next we have Lord Weardale, who spoke on behalf of the Save the Children Fund, a fund which has been a good deal, and as I think most unfairly, attacked and traduced in the newspapers, but which I have endeavoured to back up to the best of my ability and which has done conspicuous service in the Saratov province in giving food to children numbering, I think, between 200,000 and 300,000.

LORD WEARDALE

250,000.

THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON

Then I do not think anybody has mentioned by name, although it has been referred to, the good work done by the Society of Friends in the Buzuluk district of the Samara province. They have found food for 100,000 persons, of whom 70,000 are children. These are the principal British agencies that have been at work. Lord Emmott's Committee was responsible for sending out Sir Benjamin Robertson, and here let me say with what pleasure I have heard the tributes paid to that very eminent and successful administrator, this afternoon. It gives particular pleasure to me, because shortly after I went to India as head of the Government, I had to administer the greatest famine which had occurred there during the last fifty years. It was during the course of that famine that I first came across Sir Benjamin Robertson, and it was in dealing with that famine that he acquired the great knowledge and experience which, when he became head of the Central Provinces later on, allowed him to cope successfully with minor visitations of the same character. It is certainly true that a more painstaking and sincere representative of the Relief Fund could not possibly have been sent out than Sir Benjamin Robertson. I am also glad that particular mention was made by the most rev. Primate of the name of the son of an old friend of ours, Dean Farrar. Could the father have lived to see the work of his son, and to know of his self-sacrificing and noble death in the course of this famine, he would have rejoiced that his name was borne by one so worthy, and those who recall the father are not in the least surprised at the heroic career of the son.

Knowing Sir Benjamin Robertson, I asked him to come and see me and give me his advice in the matter. He says, and no doubt with truth, that it is no good for us to attempt anything in the large area that is so successfully covered by the American organisations to which I have referred—that supposing you tried to send out seed there, or foodstuff, or anything else, you would merely add to the already terrible congestion of the railways. As your Lordships know, transport has almost completely broken down. It would complicate the work done by the Americans, and for the most part would be good purpose wasted. He says: "Concentrate yourselves upon those two little islets" to which I have referred—the islet which is administered by the Save the Children Fund and the islet looked after by the Society of Friends. Concentrate your attention upon those, and try and find the money to keep the people going in the interval between now and mid-August, and, if you can get it, of course buy the grain for sowing for future use. I was interested to hear Lord Emmett say, and I think the Archbishop said also, that it really was mistaken policy to concentrate exclusively upon the children, and that while the children constitute the next generation and are worth keeping, the adult is the person useful for the moment; and I was glad to hear Lord Emmott say that the scope of the work ought to embrace the grown-up as well as the young.

The question is from what source the money is to be procured. The most rev. Primate put his Question upon the Paper in a form so ambiguous that it suggested the ecclesiastical language of an earlier epoch. For instance, he asked whether His Majesty's Government is now able to make any statement as to possibilities in the matter. I had a shrewd suspicion as to what he meant, and towards the end of his speech it came out. I might have inferred from the Question that he desired me to make a statement as to the possibilities of the extension of the famine, or of dealing with the famine. But what he really wanted to know was whether His Majesty's Government would be able to find the money, and the same question has been more directly put by the speakers who have followed.

I recognise the humanitarian appeal. I recognise that no very large sums of money are asked for in the present case. But when I go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I have done over this, he repeats, in language infinitely more lugubrious and severe, the remarks that fell from the noble Lord, Lord Weardale. He reminds me that there are nearly 2,000,000 unemployed in this country. He talks also about the "Geddes axe." He informs me that several most important Departments of State, with one of which I am personally connected, are to be condemned root and branch, and are to disappear. He tells me that if any money were given it could only be as a gift, because, of course, no restitution is possible. He tells me that, if he went to the House of Commons and put a sum of money upon the Votes he could not get it, that public opinion, as there represented, would not return him a favourable reply, and I think it is the case that we are almost always disposed to be more generous in your Lordships' House than they are over the way, for reasons into which I need not enter.

I can only say, therefore, upon this point, that, glad as I should be to help, I have not persuaded my colleague who is mainly responsible to endorse my feelings in this respect, and I think, if noble Lords feel, as they do, so deeply and so earnestly about the matter, the way to proceed is to organise public opinion, to bring pressure to bear through members of the House of Commons upon the Government. Supposing you have a round robin or appeal signed by 200 or 300 Members of Parliament, Governments become much more acquiescent in the situation than they would he of themselves. I wish I could give a more consolatory reply to the speeches which we have heard, to which we have all listened with the utmost sympathy, and for which, personally, I am very grateful to the noble Lords who delivered them.