TO SHANGHAI AND BACK TO SANDAN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 8

TO SHANGHAI AND BACK TO SANDAN

INDUSCO

This article, by REWI ALLEY, appeared in the June issue, of Gung Ho?” the journal of the Anglo-Chinese Development Society. The . name means “working together.

We know that the best way to get production is to have it widespread. That means, modernised -small industry for the village. By experience, we know that the co-operative form is the best form for it to take —if not the only form it can successfully take. The results desired—a decentralised chain of industry, reaching to the furthest corners of the hinterland. taking responsibility for its own growth—will bring back livelihood where livelihood has been reduced to bare bonesS- We have no excuse for stopping our efforts to hold a Movement together that Will begin the process of rolling back some of the prosperity of the coast into the sickening poverty of the rural areas, which have suffered so much, and where so many millions battle against such uneven odds. . , I left Shanghai in 1938, disturbed by many things—the crushing weight of the Japanese army; the pitiful sordidness of slum factories; the hopelessness of trying to get people to go to the interior, and stop just building new industrial areas in the Western district, when those in the Eastern sections were shambles; the thought that all of this human effort in the great beehive of Shanghai would be used fofr a long period against the people who were holding the first, great attacks of the thing that was almost to wreck mankind: These things made one want to try and assist, even if only a little, tne beginnings ’of something more stable. The Yellow Earth Then in this month of April, 1947, the plane left Lanchow, just a day after we had come down over the §rasslands and hills from Sandan. ind over Kansu hilltops it headed straight for Chungking. Below us were the little villages and Hsien cities, made of the same yellow earth the peasants tilled. There patiently worked those millions who have sacrificed so much to send army wheat, and their sons, for so many years. Then the landscape below changed to the red soil of Szechuan, where nee crops grew on terraces; and so we lighted on the damp, warm airport near Chungking. Then over familiar roads to the city; and past places where we had so mistakenly tried for centralised co-operatives in one of. the early stages of the war; down into city streets, now so noticeably less busy than they had been in the hectic last days of the war. And from Chungking, the flight down the Yangtse, past dykes one had worked on in 1931-32. into the Hankow where our first C.I.C. headquarters were in 1938; where to-day buildings lie blasted, where industry seems slow in coming to life again, but where the peasants, who came around our plane from nearby fields, seemed to be about the same as they ever were. Then on from Hankow, down over the lakes and marshes, past the Catholic cathedral of Sunkiang, and on into the incredible Shanghai of today. At first, it looked just about the same as it did in the heyday of 1936; but as one went from Lunghwa, one saw changes: not in buildings or roads, but in the prosperity of the ordinary people who filled the streets. They all looked as though they were living in boom times, and hardly like the people in our Sandan countryside, where poverty seems to be so much more grinding than it was. Here in Shanghai, there seemed to be plenty of everything—peace and order, traffic so much heavier, but so well controlled. The dark smoke coming over from Pootung and Yangtsepoo surely must show similar conditions one sees on the streets—people must be getting a better deal, then, than they did in other days. The theatres were crowded, restaurants filled. People well dressed., children fat and happy. I felt like a tourist just in from a foreign land, and my tongue turned awkwardly around the Shanghai dialect, unused for so many years.

How to Get Help T passed by the buildings of the former Shanghai Municipal Council as though they had never had anything to do with me, and found home and friendliness amongst the little group of C.I.C. promoters who make the only interest this amazing, yet hardly real, citv holds for me any more. Yes. there is Fu Liang at his desk, and Johnson Sun right over the way, with Mavis Ming typing out the efficient little business letters that penetrate so far into the interior. There is old K. S. Yung, once such a tower of strength in the South-east, with his slightly worried brow, and a pile of account books. Then comes in S.. T. Meng, in from Kaifeng, with Chang Li Seng. It is certainly good to see them together again, as it is to find

work in tfie International Committee corner going ahead just as it did in the first days in Hong Kong, with a new crisis every day—how to get help from anywhere it offers, how to initiate help, and how to give helper* ammunition to work with. • And as one looks at all this endeavour, at the friendliness and comradeship that goes with bringing * few people together to move mountains, one thinks back to that hinterland, which is now the front line for Industrial Co-operation, where destiny awaits the happier village. Where aU we stand for is so badly needed. And we question, how will we proceed now that we cannot carry enough promoters for our work, and how shall we carry through the training we have started, with the slender amount we •shall nave for this? It is a heartrending business having to cut out work we know is hopeful But we have to.* ace this « as we ?l as many another crisis the present situation forces on us. On my return to Lanchow from Shanghai, it was necessary for me to call lads and staff of the Lanchow Bailie -School together, and tell them that there wa* simply not enough assistance for us to carry on work as it had been carried: and that for the time being it would be necessary to move those who would still fight, along with their x training, to Sandan. Lanchow School is a bit of hard-fought-for territoiy in our Indusco endeavour. We will try and raise more help to operate it again when we can; but for the moment we feel that we shall not have done *so badly if we can carry all who would progress, even if under the more bitter, but less expensive, conditions of Sandan. The Corriedales Came Back in Sandan, examinations were in full swing. The compound for the wool set coming from Hong Kong wa* being completed outside the South Gate. The flourmill was being turned by the water wheel, and better pottery had been burned. Human problems were as ever—as there will always be when a group of youth has to work together, and co-operate. The New Zealand sheep had arrived, and were apparently thriving. Then there were all the little things: Chang Hal Liang had won the county prize for public speaking; the boys who had operations were on their feet again; the'two old cattle were ploughing up our fields for sowing; and Wally Smith was getting his accounts in order from his last Hong Kong trip, and preparing for the next. His transport section was building a new storeroom, with -bins and boxes, for all the spares they hope to get together some day. The wall of the leather division had collapsed, and was being rebuilt. The paper division was working on the pile of exercise books needed for starting the new term. There were the usual problems—no coal for the boiler, many boys down with ’flu, where would spring excursion hike* lead us to—Ma Ti Ss, Da Ma Ying, Chung San Ss, and sd on. It was good to be able to bring back •some of the little essentials—the knitting department grinder, colours for the pottery glazes, and tools for the transport department. There was also the promise of leather rollers for our cotton mill, as a present from the Sun Sing Cotton Mills of Shanghai. Neu’s that three sewing machines would be sent, as well as other material, from friends in Shanghai. It was also good to be able to bring back Colin Morrison (of New Zealand CORSO), who came with offer of a doctor and a nurse, and of an industrial chemist to help. In Shanghai. Wang Wan Seng and Sun Kwang Kuin came to the airport in the early hours to see us off. They are Bailie School lads on their way to England to bring us back some better technique. In Hankow, as soon as the plane doors opened, Tu An fang and Chang Yulin (Bailie lads who had been with the A.LS. in Shaoyang) were waiting to say hallo; and to see whether they should get on back to Sandan, via Chengchow, where others of our trainees are working; or whether to stay in Hankow ana help our convoy up. In Sandan,' we found that the garrison had helped us by making 30,000 mud bricks for our spring programme. The framework of the new classroms was erected, and trees were being planted. Tractor motors were being taken down for overhaul, boiler pipes were at last on their way uo from Sian, and fair weather was allowing for some of the heavy winter clothing to be dropped. And on my desk the same pile of letters to be answered, ends to be gathered together, and food for the zest of eternal struggle that goes with what we try to do together.