CHINESE SPINSTERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 176, 5 November 1941, Page 6

CHINESE SPINSTERS

FIGHT JAPANESE WITH BRITISH

LOOMS

Chinese Avomcn who have been supplying their fighting men with blankets laboriously made on suinning wheels of medieval pattern arc to have up-to-date machinery from Britain. The new looms will be based on a design not used since the eighteenth century, and on a smaller scale than then to allow them to be worked by peasant labour and moved about the countryside when *a Japanese advance is im, minent. Sent out by the Anglo-Chinese Development Society, London, the machinery will be used by the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives, an organisation which is one of China's strongest defences against Japanese aggression. The co-operatives, small units of labour with membership ranging from 7 to 1000, have been recruited from the 00,000,000 refugees who, starving and homeless, tied from the advancing Japanese armies along the roads into the interior. With the support of the Central Government. it is hoped to set lip 30,000 cc-opcratives, working a mobile chain of light industries from Inner Mongolia to the eastern sea. At first they will serve the needs of their own districts; later, with the help of marketing co-operatives, they will supply larger areas.

Each co-operative member receives writes on <i scalc siniilfir to, 01 higher than, that prevailing in the local industries, and after all expenses have been met the surplus is shared out. By the end of last year there were 2000 co-operatives working in 18 provinces of Free China and the guerilla areas. ]Slany of them have repaid the Government loans with which they were founded and the rest pay the interest on them regularly.' Thcv are manufacturing m different kinds of goods, including cotton cloth, blankets, papei, soap, shoes, alcohol, medical cotton

and gauze. The Angle-Chinese Development Society lias been formed 'by the China Aid Committee to help Chi, nose co-operatives in their woiX. Under the presidency of Mr Alfred Barnes, M.P. the founded members include Viscount Cecil, Miss Margery Fry, Lord Davies, Mr lulwaid Hulton, Lord Horder, Lady Hosie, the Dean of Canterbury, Lord Stiabolgi and Dr. P. W- Kuo. By loans from the public it will finance the export of machinery to China. Following the consignment ol' looms it is hoped to dispatch woollen yarn spinning machinery, cotton machines from India, rami and jute machinery, and, later on, paperuiaking and general workshop equipment and tools, which the co-opera-tives particularly need.