"PLANTEM RICE INSTEAD Or POPPIES"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 90, 14 March 1941, Page 7

"PLANTEM RICE INSTEAD Or POPPIES"

Chinese Government’s War on Opium Smoking

Ian Mackay’s Friday night "Spotlight" session from Station 2ZB has brought an interesting series of personalities to the microphone. Last Friday, March 7, at 7.45 p.m. he interviewed the Rev. Peter Mak, Chinese Missioner in New Zealand

RUTHLESS war of extermination on opium smoking and gambling, two of China’s most serious national vices, is being waged by Chiang-Kai-Shek’s New Life Movement. So effective are the methods used to discourage opium smoking, according to the Rev. Peter Mak, Chinese missionary in New Zealand, that it is estimated that in a year’s time the vice will have disappeared entirely from thdt part of China under the control of the National Government. Not only has the Generalissimo forbidden the planting of opium poppies (a prohibition which is to a certain extent offset by the encouragement of this crop in Japanese-occupied China) but he has also opened numerous hospitals through-

out the country at which free treatment is given to addicts. Before coming to New Zealand last year Mr. Mak was working at a hospital in the, Chung Shan district in South China, and he saw a sufficient number of addicts cured to convince him that the methods used are fundamentally sound. There are no half measures; a patient entering a Chinese hospital to be cured of the craving for opium is first of all put on a complete "starve"; that is to say, deprived of the drug altogether. This considerable shock to his system is compensated for by a special diet, regular internal treatment, a system of medicinal packs, and, most important, a series of injections of vitamin B, which builds up resistance, Death for Incorrigibles In a fortnight’s time, the patient leaves the hospital-cured. It is a common proverb in China, however, that to stop smoking opium is easy, but to stop smoking permanently is hard. To discourage the Chinese who may be tempted to return to the vice after a cure the Government has provided various penalties, the death penalty being inflicted for continued relapses. It is recognised that it is next to impossible for a man over fifty to cure himself of what may be a life-time habit, and for such as these the Government ‘as provided a system whereby on production of a form of: passport, an addict can purchase small quantities of opium from Government-controlled clinics. But the oot of the trouble is naturally the growing of the poppy, and it is here that the Government and the New Life Movement in particular is

directing its campaign. Once the growing of poppies was an important crop in the provinces of Yunan and Kwei Chow in south-west China, and here farmers are now encouraged to "plantem rice instead of poppies," as Mr. Mak puts it in his slightly broken English. Moral and Material Unity The New Life Movement, founded by Chiang-Kai-Shek six years ago, has had a remarkable influence on the life of the 400,000,000 people of China, especially in view of the fact that only in the last two years or so has China been sufficiently united for its precepts to be put into effect. Its aim is primarily the forging of moral and material unity among the Chinese. Its watchwords are four: courtesy, righteousness, discrimination (between good and bad) and conscientiousness. Its philosophy embraces the best of the teachings of both Christ and Confucius. To the westerner it may seem.a naive national programme for a vast country threatened by a military power as unscrupulous as Japan, but Mr. Mak has seen and can vouch for the remarkable leaven which the New Life Movement is supplying.

Mr. Mak is no stranger to war and air raids, and if he were in London he might perhaps dismiss the average Nazi dose of hate with no more concern than if it were a heavy shower of rain. His hospital in Chung Shan was well in the war zone and for months on end the town was subjected to repeated air raids and machine gunning by ’planes. Most of the townspeople had been evacuated, but a large number of essential workers remained, and these went about their daily business in much the same way as their comrades under fire in London. Mr. Mak says that tales of Japanese pilots’ machine gunning civilians are no mere atrocity stories. Time after time Japanese would fly low over the town and adjacent farms, scattering death among men, women and children, even among farmers in the fields. There came a time, says Mr. Mak, when people’s nerves ceased to protest, and they went about their business completely careless of death. In New Zealand, where he expects to stay for approximately five years, Mr. Mak is missionary to Chinese belonging to both the Anglican and Baptist Churches. An important aspect of his work is teaching mandarin, China’s universal language, to younger members of the Chinese community in New Zealand, and so fitting them for the time when they return to China. This encouragement of a universal language where once there were hundreds of distinct languages and dialects is another aspect of Chiang-Kai-Shek’s campaign for national unity. Mr. Mak has brought his wife and two children to New Zealand with him,