CHINESE RUINED BY FLOOD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 220, 18 January 1911, Page 7

CHINESE RUINED BY FLOOD

STARVING MILLIONS. APPEAL BY THE CONSUL GENERAL. SUBSCRIPTIONS WANTED QUICKLY. The Chinese Consul-General for New Zealand, Mr Yun-Lang Hwang, is* appealing to the Chinese residents of New Zealand to help the starving population of the northern part of Kiangsu province, and the adjoining province of An Whei. He states that donations from European friends will also be welcome. Donors are respectfully requested to give full addresses when they forward subscriptions to the Chinese Consulate, Burnell Avenue, Wellington. TWO AND A HALF MILLIONS AFFECTED.

Thfi a (toted districts are so thickly populated that the most rotable statistics give the average number of people to the square mile as exceeding 350. Mr Hwang, who received Shanghai newspapers recently, containim; full particulars of the famine, explained the cause and the very disastrous results of the calamity from which two and a hall millions of hard-working Chinese farmers are suffering. "It started last year with a big flood of the Yang-tsc-Kiang river. In July I received instructions from the Chinese Minister in London to obtain subscriptions from the Chinese residents of New Zealand in aid of the people of An Whei, and now the floods have caused worse havoc. The country all along that part of the Yang-tse-Kiang is very flat, and is used for cultivating wheat and rice, mainly the former. After the wheat crop is gathered in October and November, wheat is sown in the Chinese fourth month, and raised about the ei«hih month, September. The flood came before the rice crop could be gathered, and in addition to destroying crops it carried away the lightly-constructed homes of the people."

A MISSIONARY'S REPORT. "To-day I received a newspaper containing the report of the Rev. E. C. Louentitehi, of the American Presbyterian Mission in the district of An Whei. I know him personally. His father is a millionaire in New York, and he is doing his missionary work entirely selfsupporting." Mr Hwang quoted the narrative of 'the American missionary, who had made journeys into the famine areas and as a result appealed to the outside world for help for the homeless and starving. Crops have failed, according 1o his information, over an area of }OOO square miles, and two and a half million people are affected. The death-roll in the coming months will be very great unless there is adequate relief, because the winter is severe. In September last, so desperate with starvation were the people that some thousands banded themselves together and marched through the country robbing everyone who had foodstuffs or who was reported bo possess money. Some of these bands were well armed, and not a night passed without its record of robbery and murder. Terrified villagers raised embankments as fortifications, and took refuge from the bandits. The new Tientsin pe Kou railway was used to convey soldiers into the district, and a large number of executions put an end to the robberies. Scores of villagers were swept away, and thousands drowned by the rapid rise of the tributary rivers, due to a tremendous rainfall which amounted to 23 inches in one period of 24 hours. The railway engineer at Kuehcn reported that one of the bridges near that town was choked with bodies of the drowned and the debris of wrecked houses. Mr Lobenstein met several hundred refugees who had remained behind to plant some wheat for the coming spring, and hundreds more who had tried unsuccessfully to get food anil work-in the districts outside the affected provinces, and were wearily returning home, because they said it would be better to die at liome than among strangers. He added that they are nil self-respecting, hard-working farmers, nnd that probably over a million of them will be dependent on the charity of others to save themselves from death by starvation.

Mr Hwang mentioned that an English gentleman first made the suggestion for a subscription list, and he was much affected by this kindly thought on the part of one not of ;his own people. A number of relief organisations were at work, including the Chinese beneficUi societies in Shanghai, the missionaries, and the famine relief committee. He would make inquiries to ascertain the best distributing agency. ''We mii«t get our subscriptions quickly," Mr Hwang concluded, "for this is the most severe time of the year."