SHANSI WAR LORD

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 159, 2 April 1937, Page 18

SHANSI WAR LORD

Marshal Yen Hsi-Shan HIS WORK IN CHINA Harrison Brown, who is travelling round the world writing for the “News Chronicle,” Loudon, tells of what is happening in Chin,a, how Feudalism anti Social Credit go hand in baud in the province of Shansi. The province of Shansi has a population of 12,000,000. Ils boundaries are formed by two very different features. Along tlie north ami east stretches tlie Great AVall of Chinn. On its western .and southern boundaries runs I lie Hwang Ho, or Yellow River, two or three miles wide in places, though still a thousand miles from its mouth in the Gulf of Hopei. It is the river which kills by millions. Sliausi is governed by one of China’s

four marshals, and one of the two best known, Alarshal Yen Ilsi-shan. Marshal Yen was born in the province and, with one brief interval, has been tu office there since 1911. Though only 53, lie appears older, .and has the faded look of the constant night worker. The Alan at the Front. Marshal Yen works hand like bls protege, General Fu Tso Yi, the man at the front. But whereas Fu is a competent, plain soldier, intelligent but without political ambition, Yen has the reputation of being a diplomat and a past-master of polities.' Fu made his name in the civil wars, especially by his tenacious defence of the towns of Tienehen and Chohsien. Yon has made his by an equally tenacious defence of his position throughout tlie period of turmoil. Fu is the simple man of action; Yen is the schemer. They’ make a good combination, since Alarshal Yen is Hie “pacification Commissioner” for Hie two provinces of Shansi and Suiyuan, and General Fu is his subordinate. Shansi is a land of great mountains, interspersed with good arable land. It is bare and arid country with only one river inside it to water Hie plains. Trees are still a rarity, roads are few and bad, and camel caravans pad along tlie ’dust tracks and down the dry mountain gulches. In winter it strikes tlie traveller as p. grim and mournful land. Even the animal kingdom seems to be in double morning, for, excepting the pheasant, almost all are black and white, and white is the colour of mourning in China.

Tlie wild geese which flock in hundreds by the half-frozen pools in the river-bed, the great cranes which rise in pairs, tlie jackdaws which strut and chatter in tlie fields, and the magpies which are everywhere, all these are black and white. Evon tlie herds one sees are composed of white sheep with black faces, running witli shaggy goats of jet black. Shansi is almost wholly agrarian, except for the coal with which its mountains are filled. This coal lies in pockets scattered over a wide territory. Some is worked by surface scratchings, some by modern machinery. Of the crops the chief product is cotton, of which over 300,000 acres are cultivated. Taiyuanfu is Hie provincial capital. It is a walled city, like all towns and most villages away from the coast in China. Tlie walls are not for ornament; they are often needed even today. Tim Chinese are good defence soldiers, from walks or trendies. They are less good in open attack. AYlien a city lies on tlie railway, as this one does, the station always lies without the Walls. Life in the interior of China changes but slowly. Shansi to-day is almost as much a feudal independent State as when its great AVall and great river frontiers were not crossed by aeroplane and railway. And Marslial Yen himself may he called a typical feudal war lord. As a big landowner lie does not love Communism. His Souial Philosophy. His social philosophy is hard to classify. It may perhaps best; be described as a form of Social Credit. He himself calls it “Distribution according to labour.” He has a ten-year plan for the development of Shansi: it is now in its third year. Every citizen of the province, irrespective of class and employment, is required to work ten days in each year on road-making and three days ou the afforestation schemes.