TERRIBLE DAYS IN CHINA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 36, 5 August 1911, Page 10

TERRIBLE DAYS IN CHINA

TWO TO THREE MILLIONS SHORT OF FOOD.

The world has almost forgotten that .a terible famine is raging in the Chinese provinces of Kiagsu and Anhwei. The population of a tract of country two liundred miles long by one hundred miles wide has been suffering the pangs of hunger for a period of over six months, and it is reported by the European residents that the new harvest, which was expected to be secured last month, was a partial failnre. The Chinese authorities, with Eastern stoicism, have made no serious effort to relieve the distressed districts. A newspaper correspondent who visited the scene a few weeks ago reported that between two and three million people were short of food, and many of them might be expected to die before the passing of the lean months, while thousands had already succumbed. The working classes were dependent for existence on the tiny doles of rico provided by missionary organisations and official relief stations, eked out by weeds and the bark and roots of trees. The correspondent was particularly impressed by the wonderful selfcontrol exercised by the starving people." They knew that death stared them in< the face, but they did no more than show their pitiable plight and then wait quietly for the help that might never come. The cause of the constantly recurring famines in Anhwei and Kiangsu is the silting of the rivers, which have been permitted to flow uncontrolled for thousands of years, and have raised the level of their beds. The Chinese, with a lack of forethought not unparalleled in British communities, have destroyed the forests that should hold back the flood waters, and great areas of agricultural land are inundated with increasing frequency. The only remedy is to be found in the prosecution of enormous engineering works, and some day the Chinese Government may decide to take action in that direction,