THE FAMINE IN CHINA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5496, 7 November 1878, Page 3

THE FAMINE IN CHINA.

The Glasgow News (August 23) writes : From some consular reports published yesterday it appears that seven millions of persons, forming seven-tenths of the population of two of the largest provinces in China, have perished of famine. This is a fact of which, however simple it may appear, the human mind fails to grasp the full significance. It is beyond the reach even of tho imagination. We may gather some assistance from the knowledge that the number of ‘people swept away is more than double the entire population of Scotland ; but even then we only feel an overwhelming sense of the magnitude of the disaster, without realising in the least the desolation it has wrought. When we further are told that in some places the famine will probably last another year, that the Government with its utmost efforts can do no more than provide one day’s food in thirty for the surviving sufferers, and that the horrors of pestilence are being added to those of famine, the mind reels under the contemplation of the human misery involved. One’s first impulse is to ask, Can nothing bo done tq mitigate this appalling visitation ? But the hopelessness of doing so is only equalled by the impossibility of realising its magnitude ; and we can bat participate in the blank despair which seems to have seized the whole of the Chinese people.