WAR AND FAMINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 244, 5 January 1928, Page 13

WAR AND FAMINE

CHINESE FACE STARVATION EATING GRASS AND BARK PEKING, Dec. SO. Four million Chinese are verging on starvation in the Chihli and Shangtung provinces through a famine due to ravages of incessant civil wars. Already many are eating grass, the bark of trees, and even their cotton garments. Immediate relief is necessary to save thousands of lives, but the International Famine Relief Commission is finding the greatest difficulty in raising the £20,000 needed to feed the most urgent cases. An appeal has been made by the American Red Cross, whose investigations show that 65 out of 107 districts are stricken, while 35 districts have harvested only 10 per cent, of the normal crops. Chinese assert that famine was caused by a plague of locusts, but foreign observers consider that civil war, banditry, and the exorbitant taxation levied by the military tuchuns are the real reasons. All who can axe fleeing from the famine area, the poorest offering to sell their daughters for a few shillings each. Many homes have been destroyed, the owners exchanging the timber for small quantities of food.