RAILWAY MATERIAL FOR CHINA

Chronicle (Levin), 5 June 1946, Page 8

RAILWAY MATERIAL FOR CHINA

i ^ | SVDNEY, June 1. The Empire .Toy, now loading in Aus- | traliau purts, will carrv to Chiua ; 10,000 tons of urgently-needed supplies ' purcliased by ITirra from the Coiuiium wealth liisposals Commission. The shipnient will inelude AustralianI linilt light railway equipinent, 4,000,000 jSurplus saiulbags, 2700 used wheelj barrows, and 400 used timber piles. j Tliese .will be employed in the vast | Yellow River reclamatioii project which j will. possibly save millions of Chinese j fjonq starvation. ■-[ 'The rai'fway equipment eonsists of 4 ' j track ini-les of light, narrow-gauge j rails, 82 petrol-driven * locoinotiyes, | 118(5 flat-top trueks,; 30 c rossoy-ersj jJO I turnfaliles, and Otlier". items. ' SouiP'-of j the equipment. is new, ; but most of jit j has been used by anny engineers. f;or 1 military purposes in Australia, and -as ! stored at ilelbourne, Brisbane, and ! Pe.iritli, X.S.W. | More th an 100,000 men, including i several Australian technical experts, ! are now engaged in a raee against ! time to divert the Yellow River to its former channel by .Tuly 1. The river, which was breached by the ChiiTese to impede the .Tapanese advance has flooded 2,000,000 acres of China's most fertile land, and displaced thousands of farmers. The work, which' will control devastating Yellow River floods- in the years to I'ome, is TTnrra's most important single contribution to the agricultural rehabilitation of China.