REBEL RIVERS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 December 1931, Page 2

REBEL RIVERS

THE GREAT CHINESE. FLOODS APPALLING LOSSES Floods in the Yangtze basin, China, are a. normal' occurrence, and when within limits serve the same beneficent purpose as the flood waters ol' the Nile. Camping on top of the dykes in time of high water is a freqient experience’-for the peasants, who are well prepared for it, deserting their mud-built dwellings and taking all movable property to places of temporary refuge. When the waters subside their, land is easily located by trees and other marks, and the mud houses are quickly constructed. The think deposit of silt is soon made ready for sowing of winter seed. If the dykes have fulfilled their function the summer crop of rice has* not been damaged, the sluices letting in only as much water as required. The farmers have the summer crop to serve them until the-spring crop is ready, and so on ad infinitum, subject to t 1 e vagaries of the great river which feeds them, yet periodically scourges them. ! CAUSE OF THE: FLOODS The output of wateV from Szechwan and the Tibetan snows through the gr-at river has been normal this year, and, while materially contributing to the annual rise of the Yangtze, has not been the immediate cause of the recent calamity, As exlained in a report to the Government, exceptional rains occurring almost simultaneously throughout' Central China put a strain on the Yangtze with which its bed and dyke system have been totally unable to deal. Hence the floods, on a scale beyond anything ever recorded .

It the report Mr Maze points out that, although the dykes may have been neglected—as they assuredly have been—no dyke system within reason would have withstood the floods of last month. He mentioned as an example the Mississippi floods of three years ago, when all the elaborate protection system, indicated by pgst experience, and established without regard to expense, failed to prove adequate when the height*of the river rose beyond all expectation. On the. .Yangtze this year the water at Hankow rose three feet above the record height of 501 feet in 1870, and, but for this year, that level has never exceeded 48 feet in' 01 years. The normal expectation which the dyke system was designed to guard against was 49 feet, and provision to. deal >with 7 feet above that- level would have been entirely outside practical politics, .not only owing to the cost, ‘but because of the danger to whole riverine area of endeavouring to retain so enormous and incalculable a body of water within the limits of a narrow channel built up above the level of the surrounding country. To compute the area flooded except in the most general terms is deafly impossible. Provincial authorities report many hsien, or counties, flood-, ed, but in what degree and with what prospect of relief from' inundation Is pot said and cannot yet be known, Nor pan more be said as regards the numbers concerned, than that so many hsien have a population of so many millions of whom a very large portion are affected, But, considering that Kiangsu, Anhwei, Hupeh, and Hunan are affected in the majordegree, and that Kiangsi, Shangtung, Chihihli, and Honan have at least been hard hit, the official estimate of 50,000,000 homeless out of an aggregate population of 230,000,090 does not seem exaggerated, and may prove to be an under-estimation. In the Wuhan cities, having a total population of 1,583,000, it is officially stated that 163,000 houses are submerged, affecting 752,000 people, of whom 66 per cent, have been rendered homeless and destitute, figures which the circumstances suggest, cannot be far off the mark, DESTITUTE MILLIONS -For the Chinese peasant to lose his mud hut is no material loss if he has had time to remove his few valuables. But if a dyke bursts and suddenly submerges his home he loses everything, and must flee with his family for refuge on higher ground. He is lucky if none is drowned and if a little food .has been saved. On this occasion hosts of those affected have lost their all—the unharvested summer crops, stocks of food, winter clothing, cooking and farming utensils, and live stock. The numbers drowned are probably small in proportion to the total involved, and it will be the very young and the very old who are lost and not the ablebodied.

But the magnitude of the economic disaster, when tens of millions lose everything, have no food for the present, and no means of resuming agriculture when the floods subside, is stupendous and far-reaching. For the State there is the prospect of feeding the destitute millions, housin them, however flimsily, against the weather, clothing tnem for winter, and providing them with seed, farming and household utensils and live stock before they can again become self-supporting. For six months at least they must he fed, and where the water refuses to subside there will be no hnrvoef next spring, "nd those concerned will have to be fed for a - second six months. On the other hand, the people affected will not be able to pay taxes or to export or import for a whole year, thus reducing the volume of trade in the country and lowering the revenue

of the Government at the very time when its financial position is imperilled by the extraordinary demands upon it. For the people concerned, inured to hardship and semi-starvation, fatalistically imperious to the ups and downs of fortune, it can be said that they have, an enormous capacity to bear trouble patiently, and an equal capacity to spring into activity again wh.n the conditions are l'avouiable. Their present sufferings, nevertheless, are harrowing, lor they have lost all they possess; their aged dependents and their women and children are in the extreme of discomfort and misery, while the future so far i s they can see holds nothing for them. They are facing starvation, sickness;: and death literally, for, where thd ; refugees at Hankow in some degree are being fed and housed and medically treated, the multitudes in affliction away from the great centres cannot receive the same attention ar.d must perish in great numbers. THE COST. No Government of China within recent history has had any such calamity to deal with, so disastrous in itself, so beyond official power to handle effectively. The present Government has neither the financial resources nor the organisation to meet the situation. Former Governments made little or no attempt to cope with national calamities, and, indeed, it has been the .attitude of rulers and of people in general to regard such calamities as being sent by Heaven to relieve the. humnn congestion and by destroying myriads to make more room for those who survived, But the present Government claims to bo modern and civilised, and must, therefore, lie humanitarian, though perhaps privately convinced that the old official method of doing next, to nothing was the wiser and more practical policy. So Nanking is found eager to. vote sums very difficult to borrow and the payment of which, if obtained, would puzzle the Minister of Finance to effect. Fven if the money were available, it is doubtful if an Administration so loose and so subject to military and other interference would be abe to ensure its effective expenditure except- at a few of the more accessible centres.