“BADLY STUNG”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 107, 18 February 1950, Page 5

“BADLY STUNG”

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. AID FOR CHINA SYDNEY, February 17. “Both Australia and New Zealand have been badly stung already in their co-operation for economic aid to the Far East,” said J. Percival, a “Sydney Morning Herald” correspondent, tvho was recently in China, in, an article in the “Sydney Morning Herald” commenting on the cost of effective joint British Commonwealth-American aid to Asian countries, which was discussed at the Colombo and Bangkok conferences.

“Australian fishing vessels, and New Zealand deep sea trawlers, sent to China as part of the post-war relief scheme, were left rotting in the mud of the Yangtse estuary because the Chinese fishing guilds would not permit their use under the direction of experts,” he said. “Farming machinery, much of it supplied by Australia and installed under the supervision of Australians was used for a while but was discarded when the Chinese reverted to the type of farming carried out by their ancestors for a thousand years. It is now rusting away.

“Fertiliser carried to Formosa by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, delivered for a few yen per lb to Marshal Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, was sold at exorbitant profits —so high that the ordinary farmer could not afford them. The same happened to hundreds of thousands of tons of medical supplies. “Most of the £3,000,000,000 worth of supplies given to China, including ships, locomotives, lailway tracks, bridges, port facilities, and many other things, have fallen into Communist hands and are helping- the Reds to consolidate their position on the borders of South-east Asia,”