RED CROSS WORK IN CHINA

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 149, 20 March 1939, Page 8

RED CROSS WORK IN CHINA

How £lOOO From Dominion May Be Spent PURCHASE OF LORRIES Acknowledging receipt of £lOOO from the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and New Zealand Red Cross Society, Far East Relief Committee, the International Red Cross Committee, Kweiyang, Kweichow, China, says that the most serious problem confronting it is that of transport. “All medical stores now have to reach us from Hong Kong, via the French Indo-China railway, from Heiphong to Kunming (Yunnanfu), and thence be carried for three days over a stiff mountain road to Kweiyang, from which centre they are distributed to hospitals, again by very long motor hauls through mountainous country,” the committee states. “For example, to get goods to hospitals we are supporting in Honan, there is a motor haul of about 1100 njiles to Sian, which takes anything up to 10 days, and from thence they go along the Lunghai railway from Sian to Chengchow. “We are contemplating the purchase of four high speed gas lorries in England. These lorries can run on anthracite, coke, and! charcoal, all of which are easily obtainable throughout the area which we serve, and will thus render us independent of the petrol supply. Their fuel cost is approximately one-eighth that of running petrol lorries in south-west China today. The possession of these lorries, as a supplement to the Government’s free transport facilities, should, enable us to maintain efficient and prompt service to the hospitals. “It has occurred to us that your most welcome gift of £lOOO might well be applied to the purchase of two of these lorries. We think that our friends in New Zealand would be well pleased to know that their gift has been used toward' the solution of our most difficult problem.”