A GREAT EXODUS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 19

A GREAT EXODUS

MIGRATING CHMESE 1

OVERRUNNING MANCHURIS !

A ramshackle little steam .vessel,':;with rusty hull and scarred upper works, crawls alongside tbe pier at Dairen. Her decks are packed with Chinese of- the poorest class; old men, women, boys; and babies, all ragged and incredibly, dirty, with a look o£ bewilderment on their stupid faces.

They are sifted ashore by port do'ctofs like so many animals and herded, in "*a shed. Presently they emerge, some" to open railway trucks into which they crowd with their unsavoury bundles and. insanitary quills. Others, who have not even the pittance required to pay for such, mean transport, shoulder their belonsrings; the women carry cookiug-ppls "and Babies, the men are laden with more than" doubtful luggage corded in bits of cloth, "and they start off, a dilapidated and pitifnl procession, along the railway line, towards infinity. - : It is the beginning of--their "trek on foot to the promised land, which is-North-ern Manchuria. They arc participating, writes a special correspondent ■'-in-■ the '"Daily Mail," in the greatest migration in the world.' Exhausted by civil'war, bandits, and the rapacity of- fluctuating War Lords, these pilgrims have 'left their poor farms in the provinces of. Shantung and Chili and are sacking a new-life in the wilderness that lies close to Siberia. A MILLION A YEAR. ; Nothing like this wholesale ..exodus of a people lias been witnessed in modem times. They are pouring out of the oppressed provinces of North-Western Chin* at the rate of a million a year. Many simply abandon- their small holdings and leave their old homes derelict, -without even attempting to sell them. It has become a custom for these voluntary exiles on forsaking the homes of their forelatners to put a scrap of paper, in one of the empty rooms or under a stone in'in abandoned field bearing an inscription lika this: ' * ....'.;. "May he who takes up his abode here prosper where we have starved." ... The Japanese-owned South Manehurian railway facilitates as far as possible this flood of new settlers. Special fourth-class fares are granted them, and only the very poorest are forced to walk. Yet walk they do. every foot of the 600-miles journey to Harbin and thence into'the thinlypopulated tracts of Heilungkiang province, (southern Manchuria is full- They cannot stop there. ..... All along the railway one sees the iami,y camps of immigrants. - A blanket or a mat on three sticks gives shetler; little better than a dog kennel. The-pilgrims Uvo on what they can beg or pick up. Babies are born, and not a few die before the goal is reached.. Hardships are great, let they show courage and a tenacity of purpose which is a little short of amazing. EAGER TO ESCAPE. •■ So eager are these refugees to escape from China that they cross to Manchuria in every conceivable.way—by■ junk, open sailing boat, railway from Shanhaikwan, and steamer direct to Dairen. liven, in winter, jvhen the soil is frozen and cultivation impossible, they press northward, preferring death there to death at home. Chinese guilds and other charitable organisations help many on. their way. " ''' The goal is fertile agricultural" land adjoining the newly-opened " railways in North, East, and- West Manchuria. The immigrants are given seed.. ..and a very small sum to keep them alive until the tetiamst. The usual agreement with, the landowner is on -a "crop-sharing basis. ' Even well-to-do and educated Chinese have joined in the exodus from Shantung and Chili provinces, rather than endure turther the uncertain and often dangeroia existence of vassals under a local Wtx Lord. ■ •■',■■ -"' 'v ,