THE FAMINE IN CHINA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 22 March 1929, Page 13

THE FAMINE IN CHINA

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The appalling situation revealed by the cabled news referring to the famine in North China constitutes a challenge to (ho sympathy and'financial assistance of the world. When one has lived in the rural areas of China as did the writer for a number of years tho tragedy of the prpsent condition makes strong appeal. The news from the famine area has been so meagre as to obscure the extent of tho need and rob it of its natural force, and yet when pieced together it indicates a situation unspeakably terrible. The three provinces affected, Honan, Sliensi, and Kansu, are large contiguous wheat-growing areas in the North of China, stretching to tho upper reaches of the Yellow River. Two o£ them border on Mongolia, from which they are separated by the Great Wall. ]?or the last three years they have been the theatre of the civil war that has had as its objective the control of Pekin. The constant occupation by troops has bled the country white and left in its train widespread brigandage, which thrives under the present disorganised Government paralysing communication and industry. To these troubles has been added this final one tluit the year's crops have failed and the disaster is now complete. Some have forsaken the homes of their fathers and trekked abroad seeking a fresh home northwards; others have chosen brigandage rather than starvation, and add to the intensity of the present misery, and others have sought relief in. that last refuge of famine—deatli by eating the soil of the field.

The Chinese official estimate of sixteen million victims—numbering as it does a population greater than the combined total of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand— presents a need.which for many it is too late to meet, but which calls for immediate assistance for those that remain.

When six years ago the Japanese earthquake occurred, after the first significant silence, news of the most graphic character -was widely available, and had the result of calling forth the generous response of the world—a response in which New Zealand played a worthy part by contributing a sum running into some tens of thousands of pounds.

The present need in China is so infinitely vaster that an even more generous response is required. The fa-ts as they become known will make their own appeal. News which has just arrived from China indicates in a few lines something of the present position among those fortunate in making their escape. "A civil war spread over the country officials and soldiers took nearly everything the people had. . . . On top of this came failure in crops, a plague of locusts, famine, and pestilence, and worse than all was banditry, which made life unbearable. . . . Most of them were dressed in the poorest of clothing, and many wore only rags. Families would huddle together and hang together as sheep. Old torn clothes and bedding were held fast, for this was all they had with which to meet the rigours of a severe winter, where in this north country the thermometer ranges around twenty-five degrees below zero, and the ground freezes from ten to twelve feet deep.—l am, etc. FRANK H. WILKINSON. ' 22nd March.