The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 27. FAMINE IN CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 262, 27 March 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 27. FAMINE IN CHINA.

To. the average New Zealander inability I to obtain three meals a day is an event J that causes self-pity. We laugh at the ■ cranks wro for suppositious benefits undertake the "starving cure," but we never starve our horses in order that tlicy may be able to pull heavier loads or carry a "flfteen-stoner." We do not often ponder deeply on the vital necessity of food, because most of us find plenty of food on the dining table at the necessary intervals. It is impossible for the man who has never missed a meal to understand or appreciate the horrors of starvation. We read that under British strike condition women and children faint in the street. This is not because there is not sufficient food available to feed every one of them amply, but because under existing conditions of commercial "cussedness" starvation is possible three yards from wholesale supplies of food. We are familiar with the reports of "meat" riots, the demands of continental people for Argentine or Australian or New Zealand meat, but there is no modern instance of any continental community being unable to beg, buy, borrow or steel food of some kind or other. It is impossible to starve a whole community in the vicinity of food. Every living thing will fight for its stomach, but the appalling hopelessness of the conditions now existing in a portion of China are beyond the understanding of the hungriest British pauper. We are told that the wretched folk in the An Hwei province are eating weeds, dogs and bark. TheV have always been in the habit of eating dogs, so it may be presumed that no dogs are left. The extreme hopelessness of the situation can be understood when it is realised that China tries to be self-supporting. It has practically no import trade in foodstuffs. Tt is densely populated, and the vast majority of the people till the soil, and are absolutely dependent on it for sustenance. Shortage of local production in almost anv other country can be met by the introduction of outside supplies, but failure of crops in China is the death warrant of tens of thousands of folk. Of profound interest is the fact that these famine visitations are periodical, and that generation after generation the fatalistic Chinese do nothing in preparation for future famines. They simply hope that famine will not come along. If it does —well, it has always pome along since the days of Confnscins, and always may come. Tn China there is little internal migration, merely because one starving crowd moving into new territory could not possibly obtain sustenance in addition to the inhabitants. All inhabited China is under intense cultivation, and the uttermost ounce taken from the soil is never sufficient to feed all the uncountable millions fully. Vast numbers are on the border line between mere existence and total starvation all the year round. Millions of Chinese know no other world but the crowded area in which they happen to be horn, and in which they live and die. They conceive no other possibility that if there is not sufficient food in their area they must starve. There is no widespread national ambition to send their starving millions into territory that i= not crowded. It is the lack of enterprise of general knowledge and of ambition that saves Australia . Under the best conditions Nature can present fo the Chinese, the population bv unremitting toil can sir-tain themselves unsatisfactorily. Under harsh

conditions millions may die. China has been over-populated for many centuries. There have been few deciiflating conflicts, and Nature has apparently taken other courses to reduce the overplus. The Chinese never prepare for possible eventualities. When disaster comes they do not "tackle" them, and are even averse, as was seen in the plague visitation, to the help of foreigners. And so although the Chinese know that typhoons come and swamp thousands of boatsmillions of Chinese live on the water — the people take no precautions whatever, and the next typhoon does exactly as its forerunners have done during the past few thousand years. Although a river may overflow and sweep ofT the millions of people in the ricefields, the river goes down and the area becomes people again, the fatalists patiently waiting until the next flood carries some more millions away. Perhaps this has nothing to do with us. The white man has taught the yellow man that there are other worlds besides a Chinese province, that the people of other lands are unthinkably rich in comparison to the millions of humble toilers who work and starve and die in the vast empire. There is menace in the hunger of any people. There is menace in over-popula-tion, in impoverishment of the soil, in failure of crops and in leavening the East with the West. The ancient adventurers who went swashbuckling for gold and jewels were as harmless doves in comparison to the modern men of the East who might go in search of food and land whereon to grow it. A ton of gold would be useless to the starving coolie of An Hwei, because it could not purchase food that did not exist. We are told, too, that the harvest is five months off and "the worst is to come." The unthinkable misery of the coming five months will be nothing new to China, but we arc told so frequently that "China is waking up" that in the future the hordes of Chinamen who never get a "square meal" may desire to abandon the overcrowded lands for countries lying waste in the hands of a few white folk. There is no "declining birth-rate problem" in China, and there is no honor like the honor of fatherhood and motherhood. Therefore now, as in the future, there must be periodical periods of starvation, unless some means of lessening the population is found. Australasia is deeply concerned in those means. CURRENT TOPICS. HUMAN FLESH DEAR. •Many workers at their daily tasks cheerfully take their ''lives in their hands." No greater boon has been conferred on the mass of workers than the: one insisted on by organised labor that j human flesh should not be regarded as i "cheap." It is only during comparatively recent years that the man who works at ] a dangerous calling has been able to prove that he lias a right to life protection, a right to receive compensation for injuries indicted during his work, and ) that his relatives, after his death by accident., shall have a right to compensation for his loss. Earlier in British commercial history, the man who objected to trumpery hauling gear, boilers that were mostly rust, frayed slings, unprotected running belts and the like, was regarded as a dangerous person who was a handicap to "Capital," but the making of widows, although it has not ceased, has been handicapped by Labor's insistence on better provisions for protection. Necessity frequently compels a man to trust his life to a mere chance. A man who begins the day's work full of health and strength may be carried home in an ambulance because of a worn cog, a weak cargo basket, an ineffective lever, weak timbers, or any one of a thousand causes possible through carelessness or meanness. The days of unseaworthy ships are not quite over, the period of unsafe mines has not passed, and the days of "cronk" gear are still with us. We have seen in New Zealand that a too large proportion of accidents occur to the waterside worker, and it is hoped that the time is coming soon when no ship will be allowed to discharge or take in cargo until every detail of the working gear has been carefully examined by competent inspectors. The maiming of a man or his destruction may be a small matter to a shipping company, but it is no small matter to the man and his dependents. To-day (Monday) a deputation is to wait on the Minister of Marine in Wellington to place before him a record of the accidents at the waterside in that port, and to pray that he will appoint inspectors of gear. It will be claimed that although there are numerous waterside accidents ' in many New Zealand ports the proportion is greater in the chief port than elsewhere. The waterside worker runs as great risks as the man who works in the building trades. A few years ago a series of building accidents which were traced to cheap scaffolding—in other words, to the meanness of tho contractors—induced the Government to appoint inspectors. Whether this had the effect of reducing the number of accidents on large buildings we do not know. That they have been reduced there is, however, no doubt. The individual worker is unable to quarrel with his daily bread by protesting, but an organisation which is impersonal is able to make the necessary demands. We sincerely hope that the deputation which is to wait on the .Minister to-day will induce him to effect the necessary reform, one that must save human life. NEW HEBRIDES. News comes that New Hebrides natives are revolting. The estimated native population of this group of twenty islands is one hundred thousand. Fewer than live hundred white persons are on these islands, so it is hoped that the •'mixed Commission" of English and French naval officers who look after affairs for the two Powers will be able to help this tiny community of white folk to hold up their end of tlie log. The New Hebrides are unhealthy for white folk in more ways than one," and of late there have been many unpleasant allegations about the government, or misgovernment, of the group; indications of uprisings among the natives and awkward times for the few French and English people who have been attracted l>v the extreme agricultural richness of the volcanic country. It is stated in the cable news that a police force will be despatched to the seat of the disturbance. This police force has been recruited from the native population and lias been trained and is commanded by a New Zealand officer. In a recent letter to a Taranaki Daily News" mau, this officer, who desired that his name should not lie mentioned, spoke of the arduous nature of tho task of making a fighting force out of the material in hand, the chief difficulty being the scattered nature of his command, and the constant sea journeys necessary to get at the units. He mentioned thai as far as the two sections ol white folk were concerned

there was amity and cohesion and that the police force which is the only organised means of quelling rising—except the warships—was the property, so to speak, of both nations. At the time of writing the police force was fairly new, but it was stated that the native recruits were understand his duty. In the case of wide•rapidly becoming efficient. The presumption, of course, is that this force will be loyal to the white man, although there is a possibility in every native rising that the trained native may fail to understand hs duty. In the case of widespread bother in the New Hebrides the comparative smallness of islands in the group would help naval protection greatly, and it is possible that warships could effectually <|iiell the ardor of the rioters—if tile warships were in time. It is at least gratifying to New Zealanders that one of their countrymen should have the handling of the land part of the bother, and it is hoped his dark military policemen may be his firm friends.

FALL IN THE TERRITORIALS! : On April I—All1 —All Fools' Day —the registration of those who are to be compelled to bear arms will begin. It is almost unnecessary to repeat the truth that this registration will have a splendid disciplinary ell'ect on the young men of this country, that it may'germinate a national spirit that is at present missing, and that it will have a valuable physical effect on the men who are such splendid material for the purpose. The Commandant of the. Forces has already said that he anticipates large voluntary enlistment and that men of the required age will not need to be rounded up for compulsory enlistment in the training section. If the young men of the country have grasped the necessity of enlistment, and have decided that'it is their duty and privilege to bear arms, there can be no trouble. After April 1, it will no longer be possible for the able-bodied loafer to amuse himself with cheap witticisms about the men who would bear arms for him if the necessity arose. The only regret is that the scope of the new regulations is not wide enough, to include men of more advanced age. The fact that the majority of men of all ages in New Zealand arc capable of bearing arms is the best reason why they should be called upon to do so, for it is the business of the mat! of fifty to protect his country just as surely as it is the business of the man of twenty. New Plymouth is to 'be neither the headquarters of the strengthened infantry battalion of the province nor of the mounted infantry division . It is obvious that New Plymouth is the natural headquarters for the military forces of this province, and. in our judgment, the authorities would not have made New Plymouth subordinate as a garrison town to Stratford and Hawera if there had been a keener and more soldierly spirit in this town. There has never been any reason—except plain apathy—why New Plymouth should not have had as strong and as efficient, a troop of mounted men as any lesser Taranaki town, and, presumably, there is still time to recruit for the mounted branch in New Plymouth. The young men of New Plymouth happily ale not superior to the new regulations, and New Plymouth soldiers will no longer be permitted to read their own meaning into headquarters' orders.