FAMINE IN CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1921, Page 3

FAMINE IN CHINA.

MANY MILLIONS STARVING. AN OUTBREAK OF CHOLERA. VERY HEAVY DEATH RATE. Cholera is adding to the general distress in the famine-stricken district where from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 people are facing death by starvation, wrote a correspondent from Peking, China, at the end of October. The Associated Press representative, who recently travelled through the heart ol the territory most seriously denuded ol food, found conditions even more desperate than had been indicated by information previously received here. In the town of Hwai-an, where there were 100 families, 30 persons had died of cholera, and similar reports a.re common from various pther districts. . The picture presented to the eye of the - correspondent was a dismal one—the soil barren as in mid-winter, price, soaring, migration of those having more money or enterprise, the people living on a diet or weeds, chaff, thistles, and leaves, children, especially little girls, offered for sale at the average price of the small Chinese mule, cholera from under-feeding, suicides of individuals in extreme despair, old women and children gleaning patches of weeds, men with no work to do, and clusters of refugees living in the shelter of temples in market towns.

Information obtained by the correspondent indicated that the present suffering is only a forecast of that to come in the course of eight or ten weeks, when the real crisis will arrive. Condi tions in the belt he traversed in a journey by cart between two railway lines near Techow are believed to be typical of those genterally existing throughout large areas in the provinces of Chihli Shantung, Honan, and Shansi. He found indescribable misery and stoical facing of starvation by millions of people who already had" disposed of everything and saw* : in the future nothing but death. When the frost shall have killed the unconsumed leaves and. weeds there will be literally nothing to eat for at least half the population. ■ One out of 10 has already migrated without money and without destination. In the worst spots half the/ people are already—subsisting on the proceeds of the sale of furniture clothing which means that those temporarily escaping starvation will ultimately die from cold and exposure. In the town of Chi Chow, which is typical, the magistrate - informed} the correspondent that out of every three families two are quite sure to starve befor% the end of the year, barring effective relief from outside. There are 390,000 people in the administrative district in question. In Ning Ching two bankers who were engaged in raising relief funds said that the crop had been an absolute failure following two or three previous and serious shortages. Of 10,000 families they estimated that eight out of ten were practically without means. One of the informants said that he was the owner of the largest pawnshop in the vicinity. “There are ‘ constant streams of farmers coming with clothing, furniture, implements, anything upon which to realise a few coppers. They are selling their children where possible, or leaving them where there is hope that they may be fed.” Chaff and the residue from cotton, seed after the,oil has been extracted, have become valuable beyond the reach of the average person, who exists on a watery concoctjon chiefly of weeds and leaves, with perhaps a few kernels of grain, and a sort of cake, if he is affluent enough, made out of the cotton seed was'te.