THREAT TO SETTLERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 January 1947, Page 5

THREAT TO SETTLERS

YELLOW RIVER DIVERSION IN SHANTUNG COMMUNIST PLEA TO UNRRA NEW YORK, January 5. “The inundation of vast stretches of Chinese Communist territory , inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people, is threatened by the closing of breaches in the Yellow river dyke near Maifeng, according to Mr Tung •Pih-wu, a Communist spokesman, in an appeal to the UNRRA director, Major-General Glen Edgerton,” says the Nanking correspondent of the New York Times. “The closing of the dyke will turn the river’s waters from their wartime course across Honan, Anhwei, and northern' Kiangsu, to their prewar channel running through Shantung into the Gulf of Chihli. Hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile farmland will be reclaimed in the south, but the diverted waters will flow across an area where it is estimated that 350,000 peasants have settled and where the crumbling embankments will permit the waters to sweep through the Shantung countryside. “The lands to be restored are almost wholly under Government control, while the old channel mostly runs through Communist territory. “Mr Tung alleges that the Government has failed to provide promised supplies and funds to enable' the settlers to be moved and repairs made to the embankments, which would have permitted the Communist territories to be ready for the river diversion. Mr Tung appealed for the dyke repairs to be halted for five months, or for UNRRA supplies to the project to be suspended.”