UNITED NATION’S HIGH PRAISE FOR N. ZER. REWI ALLEY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 16, 29 March 1950, Page 6

UNITED NATION’S HIGH PRAISE FOR N. ZER. REWI ALLEY

The work in China of a New Zealander, Rewi Alley, is described and evaluated in a book brought out by United Nations. Through Corso, help from New Zealand reaches many countries in which relief organisations are operating. Much has gone to the co-opera-tive school in Sandan, North-West China, of which Mr Alley is headmaster.

Written by officials of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of United Nations, the book sums up the purpose of the Sandan school in its title, “Training Rural Leaders.” It is the result of personal, on-the-spot investigation of Mr Alley’s worly. Worthwhile Project

The conclusion it reaches is that “in the long run the Sandan experiment may prove to be the most worthwhile project in rural reconstruction yet undertaken in China. And it may provide a good example for similar development elsewhere.”

Events in China have not affected Rewi Alley’s work, according to his letters this year to Mr Colin Morrison, Dominion secretary at Cbrso.

It is pointed out. that China’s new constitution provides for three distinct categories of enterprise. Separate from State undertaking's a sector for private enterprise . of various kinds has been defined, and “people’s enterprise,” in industrial, agricultural and pastoral co-opera-tives is also recognised as distinct from State concerns. Under the Constitution 90-operatives are acknowledged to 1 be independent. Larger Curriculum \ , Against this background, Mr Alley reports from Sandan that all is well, that his curriculum is being extended and the school roll increased, and that continued help from his countrymen in New Zealand is as vital as ever. The function of the school at Sandan continues to be that of training boys in modern production methods and in the co-operative optlook. When trained, the boys take their place as leaders and instructors in co-operatives in China’s backward areas.

The belief that motivates Mr Alley is, as he expresses it, that “it is to everyone’s advantage in these frightened times, to make a direct attack on the basic problem of poverty, and we feel here that by so doing we are working for the better world we hope for.”