SHADOW OF FAMINE IN CHINA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 27

SHADOW OF FAMINE IN CHINA

WHAT WAR, DROUGHT AND FLOODS HAVB

DONE

Mr. Walter H. Mallory, who is Executive Director of the Council of Foreign Relations, New York, and who at one time served as Secretary of the Chinese International Famine Relief Council at Peking, prophesies a big famine in China. Writing in the “International Review of Missions,” Mr. Mallory says:— “Now that military operations are temporarily past and the area affected by famine has come under the control of the nationalists, official reports are being made, investigation of the area is easier, relief measures for the starving people have been instituted, and there is unanimity of opinion that a major famine emergency has occurred and in fact still continues. Dr. Saoke Alfred Sze, Chinese Minister in Washington, recently made a statement which contained the following passages:— “ ‘News dispatches of the last few months have carried harrowing reports of the suffering of millions of families living in Southern and Western Shantung. The famine area has also included sections of neighbouring provinces: Northern Kiangsa, Southern Chihli and Eastern Honan. “ ‘The people have been driven to most desperate straits, some migrating to Manchuria and other near-by territory. Many homes have been completely broken up. Often, with food gone or nearly gone, it being impossible for' the whole family to travel, the men have migrated, leaving families behind. In desperation, children have been deserted or, through death or disease, children have been left orphans and wives widows. “ ‘ln their desperate efforts to secure food not only have dray animals and implements been sold, but houses have been dismantled that the woodwork might be sold for fuel, and farms have been mortgaged or sold. Thus a considerable proportion of the population has been reduced to utter poverty and hopelessness. . ■- . ... .. ... “ ‘Early reports indicated that the spring harvest would be very meagre in some sections, due to the fact that not more than'so per cent, of the crops had been sown and of the fact that dry ‘ weather during the early spring

had seriously affected the growing crops. The interruption of communication, due to military activities of the last few weeks, leaves us without much detailed knowledge, but it is obvious that suffering must still be very great among those who have survived but whose resources are exhausted. Such reports as have come to hand indicate that there is need of much relief, even during these summer months. “‘So great is the distress and so obvious is the fact that extensive relief will be needed during the coming fall and winter that the Nanking Government is now preparing for extensive relief measures in all this region. Preparation is now being made for raising a fund of several millions of dollars through customs, surtaxes and otherwise for this relief.’ “While it may be said that the fundamental reason for the famine is the .overcrowding on the land, the immediate causes have been building up during the last few years. The drought of 1920 affected this same area. In 1921, the Yellow River left its course and flooded a large area in the north-eastern part of Shantung. In 1924, one of the worst floods In the memory of the inhabitants inundated the Chihli plains, destroying the crops a stretch thousands of square miles in extent and causing damage estimated at two hundred million dollars (in Chinese currency). “In 1925. the Yellow River agam broke its dykes in western Shantung, flooding more than one thousand villages. And in 1927 there was another severe drought, another Yellow River flood and a visitation of locusts. Add to this background of distress due to natural causes the exigencies caused by warfare, and the feeding of large bodies of soldiery on the practically exhausted supplies of the people, and there are conditions which would develop a famine in a much more prosperous district than Shantung, which, because of its poor soil and uncertain climate, has long been regarded by the Chinese as one of the poor provinces. “ The fighting, for the moment at least, is past The assurance has come from China that the administration of relief is entirely practicable.