N.Z. DOCTOR REWARDED WITH ARI TREASURES

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5286, 24 December 1946, Page 5

N.Z. DOCTOR REWARDED WITH ARI TREASURES

WELLINGTON, last night. Two 600-year-old Ming vases, a 900-year-old incense-burner from a Chinese tomh, and a small bronze liorse's head from the Hau dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), are among the scuvenirs of UNRRA service in China; brought back by. Dr. William J. C. Wells, of Wellington. He was . given them by a Catholic priest in the Honan Province vriio was too poor to offer any money for the medical treatment Dr. Wells had given him. In an interview, Dr. Wells said the vases alone were worth about £200 each. He said he was attached to mission ho-.pitals, at Kaifeng, the capital of China during the Ming dynasty. The town was near the site of UNRRA's Yellow River projeet, where 20,000 coolies were working to fill a 600ft. breach in the river bank, blown up by the Chinese to stem the advanee of the Japanese troops. The Chinese were working hard to complete*the work before the end of this month as it would be a year before they had another opportunity. By filling the breach about 3,500,000 aeres of land would be reclaimed. A Bumpef Harvest The district had had a burnper. harvest this scason, Dr. Wells said, and though the military took 70 per cent. of it, he saw no cases of act-ual starvation. The threat of famine lrung over the people all the time as next season the crops might farT. A province could be living in plenty while its neighbours were starving, but the laclc of transport faci?ities could not rectify the position. UNRRA was encouraging the local bodies to develop roads by giving them cars. Given- a transport systern to develop heavy industries, said Dr. Wells, the Chinese would be able to expand their exporting potential, there'by stabilising their economy. He was of opinion that a reciprocal trade between New Zealand and China should he encouraged. New Zealand, he said, had wool for export, and the Chir.ese worild give anything for a woollen garmont.