CHINA OF TODAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1941, Page 3

CHINA OF TODAY

GREAT MOVEMENTS AFOOT. Several of the great movements that are taking place in China as a result of the pressure of the Japanese war were described by Mr J. T. Litherland, of the China Inland Mission, at the Auckland Creditmen’s Club. Mr Litherland was stationed about 250 miles inland from Canton from 1932 until March of last year, and is hoping to return to China shortly. The great trek of the Chinese people from east to west brought about by the war was referred to by Mr Litherland as the greatest transference of population that the world had ever seen. Fifty or sixty million people had been moved from 500 to 800 miles practically without the assistance of modern transport. Huts and hovels had been built and in the midst of them mills and factories had begun working. The war had brought a great intensification of the New Life Movement begun by General Chiang Kaishek and his brilliant wife in 1933. Mi’ Litherland described the removal of industries from the coastal areas and their re-establishment in the safety of far inland provinces, and the growth of the industrial co-operation movement in which Mr Rewi Alley, of New Zealand, is taking such a leading part. The educational reconstruction was also a very wonderful thing.