FAMINE IN CHINA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5317, 24 August 1928, Page 2

FAMINE IN CHINA.

A RECURRING EVIL.

REASONS FOR THIS CONDITION.

In the- daily Press you have been reading about an appealing famine in China. Four million fellow humans are starving. Ten million are in direful straits. Thriee millioji women, children, old men, and old women, are wandering about in search of foo/l. Millions have surged into the province of Manchuria, perhaps the largest emigration in history. Perhaps a million; have perished on t'h!q correspondent estimates that SlSitung has lost 9,000.000 of population in twelve months.

“Why is China, known as the land of famipe ? The answer cannot be g.iven in a single sentence.” writes John Earl Baker in the New York Times. “The climate of North China is determined by prev,ailing winds. During the winter months these winds blow easterly from the continental plateau, upon .which is the Gqbi Desert. During the season, consequently, there is no rainfall an,d ojiily rarely a light snow. During the summer. these winds blow westerly from the Pacific Ocean, carrying with them the moisture which produces the summer rains. Thus the belt lying between Nanking and Pekiu receives most of its precipitation durtog June, July, and August. This belt extends from the cqast back s nne 400 miles to the plateau.’ “An occasional snow in winter, an early beginning or a late ending of the mojnsoon, is, a frequent variation from the rule, if there is a good ■Snowfall or two in the winter, one goqd shower during April and 'May, North China has a big, year,— : a, crop of wheat in June and a crop of millet, .sorghum, and beans in; September, If the snows or the showers fail, there is only one crop—the Fall crop.

“Frequently it happens! that the year’s moisture is nearly all crowded into tlie last two weeks of July and the first two weeks of August. Then rivers burst their banks and, as most of them ha.ve beds higher, than the surrounding country. devastating floods result. There was a time when the Oiccaslon'al drought f6und. a public granary filled with the surplus of the fat years upon which the poor qf eacli County might draw. There was a time when dykes did not break frequently. This was the period of China’s greatness, when government was strong, and subordinate- officials were under gooff discipline; “One hundred and fifty years ago, under the great Emperor Chien Lung, the Chinese Empire covered five and a-half million square miles of terr.itqry—about twice th!e area of the United states. While Europe and America have grown strong and rich. Chjna had grqwn weak and poor. By 1850 the Manchu Emperor was no more than a mere puppet. After 1860 mere infants bore th's, Imperial title. In 1900 practically tlie whole, qf the Chinese Army refused to ojbey the Empress Dowager’s orders. In 1913 the Manchu dynasty abdicated. During; th© enftire period of decay river, training, dyke repair, the public granaries, like everything else, connected with government, decayed also. f req ue n t c a last rop hies—catas tropnies more appalling—have been the inevitable result.

“It is difficult, for. us to appreciate why the Chinese -people do not collectively oiganise to build a n.ew Gqv-ernmee-n.t and improve their lot. A people with a tradition in self-govern-ment like ourselves would do so in fifteen or twenty years. But the Chinese have no such tradition, no such experience. Imperial Government is all they have known. To learn apy other, is a tremendqus task. The energies of all the national leaders are absorbed in that one necessary' task.

“Thus, where disasters overwhelm large areae it is left for us, who are living under organised conditions to cope with the- situation. Fqr seven years an International Famine Relief Committee has attempted to do some of the work which formerly the Chinese Government did alone. Several millions qf Government funds' have been placed uiffier its tupervisiop. In time of famine, instead of paying holes or opening soup kitchens, it organises some’ needed work of repair' on cqnstruction. Payment is made: in|. cQjarse foodstuffs for the labourer and his family in proportion .to the work done.

“Because of the- civil war, perhaps many wo.nden if it is possible to engage upon sizable construction. wqr.ks.. The answer is. that China, is a big: country. The armies move in fairly definite lanes towards well-known objectives. Hostilities are always of limited duration. Keep out qf ,the lin.e of action or. ‘lay low’-during actual fighting, anff no more than the usual obstacles will be encountered. -Engineers are used t.q labour under crude conditions. Disea.se is always something of a. hazard. But to the initiated China famine, workers thesemilitary campaigns are only minorobstacles.

“If there were a settled Government in China, starving Chinese’ would not look to this prosperous: land for help. But there is no Gow ern;nient in any' real isense of the wo,rd. The civil war. is a to—wards government, lit j s about.'the only methods ever successfully used., by man to. produce new government; Some day China will have no need of American aid. But mea-nwhile millions starve—millions whom we can save—millions whose friendship can some day help tremendously towards a peaceful world order.”