BEHIND THE CHINA BLOCKADE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24901, 14 June 1946, Page 2

BEHIND THE CHINA BLOCKADE

LIFE AT CHENGTU

ADDRESS AT TRAVEL CLUB “Behind the Blockade in China” was the subject of an address given by Miss Agnes Moncrieff, the guest speaker at yesterday’s meeting of the Travel Club. Miss Moncrieff has worked with the Young Women’s Christian Association in China for 15 years and recently returned to New Zealand after having lived in Chengtu sinefe three months before the closing of the Burma road. Chengtu was an old educational centre, said Miss Moncrieff, and while she was there four refugee universities were established there. The greatest hardship she had experienced was the lack of reading material Although there was a good university book club, it contained no publications later than 1940. Postal communication between Jap-anese-occupied China and Free China did not break down throughout the war, said Miss Moncrieff. of the censorship, it was impossible to mention the Y.W.C.A. as such, and one had to make vague references to “the family” or “the business.” “If the Japanese had censored our letters they would have wondered how any family could have so many relatives, even in China,” commented Miss Moncrieff. The speaker also described several hazardous journeys she had made in bamboo chairs, rickshaws, and trucks. Chinese drivers were among the wildest in the world, she said. As leng as the engine worked, nothing else mattered. Sometimes her party had to travel with an armed guard because of the possibility of meeting bandits. “I was more nervous of the armed guard than of the bandits,’’ said Miss Moncrieff.

“When I returned to China this last time I was rather perturbed when I was told that it would cost me 22 dollars a day to live, as I had previously lived in Shanghai for six dollars a day,” said Miss Moncrieff when describing the effects of inflation in China. “When I left the country it was costing 2000 dollars a day to live.*’ Miss Moncrieff mentioned a house which the Y.W.C.A. had bought before she left. Two and a half years previously the house had been sold by the American Baptist Mission for about 100,000 dollars. The same amount of money was then spent on repairs to the building. It was sold to the Y7W.C.A. for 13,000,000 dollars. There were two recent developments which she regarded as full of hope for China, said Miss Moncrieff. One was the appointment of a people's political council, which, although it had no legislative power, was able to make recommendations and was a step towards a more democratic government. The emergence of a Democratic Society was also important. This was tile first party in China which had no army to depend On, said Miss Moncrieff. Armies were still regarded as political instruments in China, and the emergence of this society would help the people to see that an army belonged to the country and not to any one party. Before Miss Moncrieff’s address songs were sung by Miss Isobel Purse. The accompanist was Mrs J. C. Cullman. Miss M. Ellyett and Mrs Cecil Wood were the hostesses, and the president (Sir Joseph Ward) presided.

LIFE IN BRITAIN ATTITUDE OF WOMEN “Bntaln is a monotonous place at the present time, and the most monotonous thing oi all is not rationing but queueing. You queue for everything—from a postage stamp to a newspaper," writes R. G. Lloyd ,Thomas in an article in ‘London Calling,” the overseas journal of the 8.8. C. "I admire the stoic calm of the British woman most of all in a queue. Vary rarely does she get Irritable; she keeps her good hUmour. It is the Spirit of these Women of Britain which leaves tne indelible impression. They have had years of hard, solid grind—in factories, in the services, on buses, trams and trains, and—where most of us mere males are likely to overlook it—in their homes. They have been bombed out and bombed up, they have had alarm* and excursions, and years of restless nights in air-raid shelters. They have stayed put—they have never moaned—or, at least, never moaned more than a good army always does; and 1 think most of them are beginning to Wonder why the world should think that they have gone down Under the loss of an ounce of lard a week. Get things into that perspective, and you will appreciate giat a bit of lard Will not do What itler failed tb do.” , “But, the point that you may overlook, and which I have tended to overlook, is the fact that Britons themselves think that things are not half as tough as the visitors do,” continues the article.

You see it la all comparative. It is what you get used to. It is what you learn to do without. The average housewife has become austere almost by nature. If she We told that she could pick up a telephone and order a couple of dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, live pounds of sugar and as much,jam as she wanted, and have them delivered, I do hot think she would have the Immediate capacity to do it.

There is another thing: I think If it were possible to take a census amongst the women of Britain, It would be shown that theta are many more worries over household eouibn V 16 .! 6 are ° ver foodrh.u^« Hs .K°l.? hol L san<ls ol women in ?A ita J n Who would much prefer sheets to sugar—and they are wantne?r curtains with almost the traditional fervour with which a woman desires a new spring hat.”