CHINA TO-DAY

Evening Star, Issue 19774, 26 January 1928, Page 2

CHINA TO-DAY

THE YANGTZE CITIES A VIEW AT CLOSE QUARTERS [By a Col-respondent of ‘ The Times.’] A prolonged slay in Shanghai makes China seem as remote as Patagonia. The ships that have gathered from the end of the earth; the smoky river front that might be London or Glasgow or any great city; the tall modern buildings; well-paved, dean-swept roads; trams and motor cars, and more, a certain attitude of mind of the inhabitants, all combine to cut off the International Settlement of Shanghai from the rest of China, in spite of the crowds of Chinese that throng the streets and contribute their share to the trade of the city. So it is with a senso of homecoming that one leaves Shanghai and comes back to the real China up the broad waters of the Yangtze, past rice fields and thatched villages, walled towns with muddy streets and curving roofs—homo after the homelessness of a place that is inhabited by all nations and belongs to none.

At the moment peace seems to brood over the Wuhan cities, and indeed over all Central China. Whether it is the pence of utter exhaustion or tiie calm that precedes the gathering storm is hard to say. After the coup of Tang Scng-chih the Government faded away. Some of the ollicials have gone to Nanking, others have vanished into the country. The municipal authorities ■are still in being and apparently there are enough police and soldiers to keep order, but all other departments are “under reorganisation” and public business is at a standstill.' LTiuiy has now gone and the Wuhan cities are occupied by Nanking generals.] By a series of unscrupulous jugglings with the currency the last Government has succeeded in bringing about financial chaos. The use of silver was prohibited and no > one dared to use the silver dollars lie possessed. Several native banks were forced to pay over thousands of dollars’ worth of silver in exchange for the new paper notes. Copper became very scare, and for somo days it was impossible to obtain any chango at all for a dollar note. Even foreign businesses wore compelled in some cases to take the paper notes. When a large amount of silver had been collected, the Government departed with its haul and the banks were able to pay only twenty cents for each note. It is said that the money thus removed from the hanks will be used to found a Bank of Hupeh and Hunan, but no one expects that it will have any other destination than the pockets of certain ollicials. Many merchants were ruined by these transactions, and naturally the greatest sufferings fell on the working class, whose normal life is on the starvation lino, for one dollar represents the food of a coolie for more than a week. Also rice is scarce in Hupeh, and already well above the average price, and the scarcity of silver prevents import from the bountiful, harvest of the neighboring province of Hunan.

BUSINESS IDLE. There is very little business going on in either city. In Hankow a. certain number of coolies are busy on the Bund, but some of the foreign offices are still closed, and in the native city stagnation is apparent. In Taiping road, the great Chinese shopping centre, many shops are altogether shut or do not trouble to take down their shutters. Others are half-empty of goods; no one has money to buy silk or fur. There are few well-dressed people on the streets, and, as always, numerous beggars. In the former Concessions the roads are stil swept, and the Bund looks very much as it did before last January, except that the grass lawns and scats are crowded with Chinese; in' the native city repairs to some of the streets are so long overdue that they are almost unusable. The exhaustion to which the last few months have reduced the country is more apparent in Wuchang, which has not the stimulation of foreign trade. Like tlie Flemish peasants of 1918, the people seem to have passed through every terror imaginable and to be indifferent to the future, bo it good or bad. In one year this city has seen a six weeks’ siege, the departure of the Northern soldiers, the coining of the Southerners, the establishment of the Revolution, the horrors of the Communists. It is small wonder that they are unmoved by political or military changes. Nothing is likely to be any better; nothing can be worse. Signs of poverty are seen, not so much in the hordes of beggars, as in the shabbiness and anxiousness of the people on the streets. Many of the children have the “famine look.’’ Most of the schools are closed, though the two foreign hospitals nave worked under Chinese leadership ever since the departure of the foreigners last spring. Tho Government, :f indeed there be one, seems to leave the people to their fate, though there is a sporadic agitation against Communists. On the walls the tattered remnants of posters tell the history_ of the last _ few months: “Down with the English!” “ Down with Japanese aggression in Shangtung!” and more recently “Drive out the Russians!” But those cries have lost their power to excite andenflame. Wuchang has now no interest in them.

If there is peace in Wuhan there is no progress. The fires of the Kuomintang movement are burnt out and there is no enthusiasm left to carry on the programme of social betterment, even if economic conditions' did not make such schemes impossible. One mission has opened its primary schools, but the Government has no money for education and few parents can find silver dollars to pay school fees. Central China University attempted to open a revision school in Wuchang and expected 200, but so far only thirty boys have joined. Tho condition of paying thirty-five dollars in silver for the food of the term seems to bo more than most students can satisfy. Of higher education there is none. Tho boys and girls who should be the doctors and nurses, the teachers and professional men of the next generation have the choice of doing nothing or of graduating at a propaganda school, after which they may be lucky enough to got a Government clerkship at a salary of eighty dollars a month, paid in paper or not at all. A BLEAK PROSPECT.

It is difficult to see hope "m the future. One of the hopeless signs of the times is the misguided thinking of people and officials alike, a conviction that the poverty and misery of the country are caused by unequal distribution of wealth and can be remedied by robbery, official or otherwise, of the wealthy. Senseless hatred of the rich by the people and equally senseless taxation by the authorities are not measures that, could ever relieve the troubles of the land. The poverty and misery are clear enough, but they arise from the raids of militarists and bandits, the wickedness and folly of the Government, and the ignorance, shiftlessness, and stupidity of the people. Changsha is quiet—on the surface. Going through the streets one notices the absence of startling and incendiary posters and the indifferent attitude of people. For October 10, the anniversary of the “glorious revolution,” the Government interdict of assemblies and processions was relaxed. In the morning speeches, plays, and the mummery of ventriloquists and dancers, So dear to Chinese hearts, were arranged to take place in the Educational square, the scene of the April massacres; in the evening a lantern procession was to trail round the town. Stages were erected for the entertainment, the streets decorated with green-

cry, paper festoons, and lanterns; placards showing the “ People’s Three Principles ” as a light guiding the good citizens of China to peace and happiness covered the walls andhoaidings, and the people of Changsha prepared for a day of rejoicing over the revolution and over the returning prosperity of the city, due to the abundant harvest and the restoration of the silver coinage. A great crowd had filled the square and were listening to an oration when a bomb was thrown in the middle of the audience and the crowd scattered in terror. The streets were cleared, the procession abandoned, and martial law proclaimed, though the man, a, Communist, who threw the bomb escaped in the confusion. This and other indications of suppressed opposition destroy any hope that the worst has already happened. Sooner or later the Communists will try again. Opinions vary as to the prospect of a peaceful winter in Hunan. The officials say confidently that the present Government is stable, and proudly point out their improvements and reforms. Tang Seng-chih, who is a Hunanese, and looks on Changsha as his own city, paid it a visit and left a number of his picked troops to support the Administration. Though some of the officials are the same men who failed last April, others are new —young, foreign-trained students with immense confidence in their ability to maintain order and to establish the millennium without delay. Stern measures arc being taken against Communism. A list of supposed Communists has been prepared, and everyday men and women are arrested and executed on tho new motor road just outside the city. [Nanking rule has since been established at Changsha.] A BONFIRE OF NOTES.

The currency has been restored to normal, though trade is still difficult owing to conditions in Hankow. Flans were made to stare a Bank of Hunan, and more than 30,000 dollars is said to have been spent on printing notes and securing premises, but Tang Song-chih refused to allow the bank to open, and the notes were burnt in great bonfires outside tho station, it is proposed to have a State bank for Hupeh, Hunan, and Kiangsi, and to take the money extracted from the Bank of Communications and the Bank of China to start the new company, in Changsha notes arc no longer in circulation, and many people have lost very heavily, as wages and accounts were paid in paper during tho summer. Tho most important factor that makes for peace is the harvest, which, contrary to expectation,_ is abundant. None of the Communist leaders has been brought to account, insignificant subordinates have perished ancl the Government is making a great show of its activities against the movement, bub the leaders themselves, are at largo and more or less openly working. Moreover, the authorities do not seem to have tho slightest grasp of economic principles, such as the limits of taxation or tho conditions that govern successful trade. Those who have or are thought to have money aro being gradually driven out of the province or reduced to penury by an iniquitous system of taxation. In the city, although the taxes for 1927 had already been paid to the Government in power in April, they have again been demanded, and, in order to bo sure of the money, tho authorities have prudently collected the taxes for 1928 and 1929 as well. Demands are constantly made for money for street lighting (in most streets non-existent), and street mending and cleaning (a public service unknown in China); refusal to pay would only mean arrest. With no money coming in from the fields and subject to these repeated extortions from the Government, _ tho old wealthy families are in a pitiable state. Most of the men have' # fled to Shanghai, and tho women live in little rented houses with barely enough* for the necessaries of life, anxious only to escape attention. A PEOPLE IN FEAR„ ;

The chief emotion in the, minds of the people is fear. Fear of the ..Communists, fear of the Government, fear of their neighbors. They have passed through such a period of horror that their minds seem paralysed and few have the energy to look towards the future or feel that any effort is worth while. Amid so much official violence, robbery, and fraud, private enterprises of the same nature pass unnoticed, and thieves, bandits, blackmailers, and tricksters flourish unchecked. It is only when one talks to the people that one realises the depth of the terror which they have endured. This one’s brother was killed by Communists, that one lost a father or an uncle. Another girl of fourteen said she had spent three months in hiding, going every day to a different relative’s house, because the Farmers’ Union had denounced her as an Imperialist, since she was the daughter of a wellknown man and a student of an unpopular school. Yet another told how her family had received a letter warning them that the Farmers’ and Laborers’ Union were coming to kill them all, and how’ they had fled through the rain in the middle of the night. In some cases sixty or seventy farmers arrived at a house, demanded several thousand dollars, and took up their quarters on the compound, eating and drinking at their host’s expense until the money was paid. In the country this sort of thing is still going on. Rands of brigands, most of them splliers who have deserted with their arms, roam about the country plundering, killing, and holding to ransom. In the south of the province a young man has collected a force of more than 500 men, and goes from place to place seizing the towns, driving out the magistrate, and only going on when Tie has collected enough money from the inhabitants. At Riling, a town at the end of the railway about thirty miles south of Changsha, the same thing was done in the name of Communism by another group of men, and this is said to bo part of a widespread plot In many places the Farmers’ Union has its organisation still complete, only waiting for the opportunity to begin its work again. The weakness of the Governor and the Government, the activities of these Communists, and the absence of any constructive plans for reforms are all factors that almost ensure a return of Communism in Hunan.