WORK OF REWI ALLEY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25447, 19 March 1948, Page 2

WORK OF REWI ALLEY

ADDRESS TO WOMEN CITIZENS

The work of Rewi Alley at the Sandan Baillie Industrial Co-operative School in China was described by Miss Betty Lorimer when she spoke yesterday at a meeting of the women’s branch of the Christchurch Citizens’ Association.

Miss Lorimer, when in China recently, saw the school in action. Sandan was founded in the fifteenth century as a Buddhist centre and was full of temples, Miss Lorimer said. This was a great advantage to the school in a land where usable buildings were scarce. The machinery of the school was set up in the temples, and it was an amusing sight to see a row of Buddhas smiling benevolently down on a wool carding machine, Miss Lorimer said.

Every boy in the school was apprenticed to a trade as well as learning the ordinary school subjects. He could be taught pottery, 'tarpentry, weaving, paper making, and many other trades. When the boys graduated they would go into types of villages similar to Sandan and there would set up trade co-operatives. With money sent from CORSO in New Zealand Rewi Alley hoped to buy 600 acres of land in the area, Miss Lorimer continued. On this, when irrigated, much food could be grown. A great gift from New Zealand to Rewi Alley had been the 25 Corriedale sheep which she had seen grazing outside the city wall at Sandan, Miss Lorimer continued. The sheep of the province produced a very hairy wool, and it was hoped by breeding the New Zealand sheep with the Kansu sheep to produce a more “woolly” type. Another gift from New Zealand was mining equipment which had been sent to Sandan from the miners of the West Coast. “The province has every known resource, and coal is just sticking out of the ground,” Miss Lorimer said. There were also deposits of iron ore, and silica and soda ash used in making glass. The president (Mrs G. H. Watts) presided at the meeting.