SHEEP FOR CHINA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 95, 17 February 1947, Page 6

SHEEP FOR CHINA

CORRIEDALES ON SHIPBOARD Fifty pedigree Corriedales are being loaded at Lyttelton this week on to the UNRRA stock ship “Lindenwood Victory” in addition to the thousand stud sheep which are travelling as part of the New Zealand Government’s contribution to Chinese Rehabilitation. These fifty Corriedales have been personally given by South Island breeders to Rewi Alley, the New Zealand leader of the Chinese Co-operative Movement, in order to improve the wool yield in his district which is at present frequently as low as one or two pounds per sheep.

They are intended to replace a flock of 150 which was actually en route in 1941 when the opening of the general Pacific war forced it to be landed instead at Calcutta. However, although Alley’s Chinese shepherds contacted the flock and attempted to drive it north across the Himalayas, they had after two years to give up the attempt in the middle of Tibet.

The present flock is travelling under the care of qualified sheepmen from the New Zealand Department of Agriculture as far as Shanghai. After Shanghai, however, lie the hazards of a 2000 mile overland journey by river, road and track through dangerous and unsettled country. To avoid this it is proposed to fly the sheep direct to Kansu. If this were done a mere 2-hour air journey would land them in their own grazing field beside the temple which is Alley’s headquarters. The cost of this air transport was quoted a few months ago as nineteen million Chinese dollars. In New Zealand currency, however, this frightening sum reduces to approximately £ISOO. Judging by the many offers of help which Alley received when the news of his former loss reached New Zealand, he is confident that it will be subscribed by New Zealand people, and particularly by farmers who did not have an actual stud sheep to give. CORSO, which has already a special account for Chinese Industrial Co-operatives, has undertaken to act as receiving agent for the “Rewi Alley Sheep Fund, Box 11, Government Buildings Post Office, Wellington.”