RAILWAYS “IN RUIN.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 27 January 1927, Page 8

RAILWAYS “IN RUIN.”

* — THE COLLAPSE OF LIFE IN CHINA. CONFISCATION AND STARVATION. Twelve months ago (states the Peking correspondent of the London Observer) a local writer argued that the Chinese railway system had come to the end of its tether of productiveness and usefulness. It would soon prove a curse to tlie people, he said, and so be urged a return to more primitive means of transport. He presented the campaign with the slogan of “Back to the Barrow.” Facetious though this seemed, events have proved the writer’s foreknowledge. If the people had taken his suggestion seriously we should not now be faced with a coal famine, as well as a -shortage in other necessities of a winter life. Prospects are so alarming, indeed, that the diplomats have had to resort to representations. Rut to no purpose; if you want things done in present-day China the worst oossible method is to enlist diplomatic support. The Chinese flout the diplomats nowadays out of sheer cussedness. The coal-dealers have been more practical ; they have started a camel "service withe Shansi province—tlie source of production. This, after all efforts to obtain waggons from the military had failed.

The wa •* lords have practically closed the railways under their control to coal conveyance .and onlv very grudgingly allow any facilities, for the transport of foodstuffs. What little coal comes in is subject to extra imports for mllit-ar.v expenses, as well a.s to sm-.li “.squeeze” as‘tlie soldiers, care t ? place on its release- to the merchants. In consequence., prices ia.ro mounting; with the help of falling values in .silver, they -are overwhelming a population -already reduced to misiqi v by civil war. Much of China V production lias -also ♦•• yield its ouota to the nißitarv' the source. Farmers and traders have to pay deJii-rlv for the privilege of feeding and looking after the cities. Ob-' •d-acles are sometimes insuperable and Mien the cities have tp starve. Mars, '-a-s;. to Joe served first, and. even when he is .satisfied, he i* always likely to go on the rampage, and indulge in wanton destruction of the- portion left over. The entire country ministers to him. and lie bias at least three millionminions to iseciiic that allegiance. 1? AMS HACKLE ENGINES.

In one ul the eighteen provinces .it Wits I'OCOllfly (-Olllp)ll 0(1 licit 11 - ixlll of the population. or .'>()!),(KJi), wore niulef arms. '1 lie (•■-limaie was made !>.v independent observation, for tho investigutor, wha- admitted finite frankly that he wii-s ignorant rtf the strength of his command, laiid would be glad to get exact figures for himself. When the

soldier is king, it* is much more advisable to attach yourself, however loosely, to tlie side of the despoilers than to .that of the despoiled. That is the philosophy of the countryside in China to-day. Common sense should apparently dictate sonic, cure of . The railways at a time when, they are such a . valuable adjunct to the machinery of war-mak-ing. But the . way lords are notori-1 ously deficient in. copimou sense. Their I railways are Viopelessly mismanaged | and iii a deplorable .state of disrepair. No receipts are allowed to come to tlie Ministry of Communications, the organ * nominally responsible for China’s nationalised system, and no foreign supplier will now supply materials until some attempt has been made to clear existing indebtedness. So grievous is the state of things on the Peking-Hankow line that several trains lire allowed to run with impaired brakes. Tlie drivers manage to stop the trains at The stations by shutting' off steam a mile outside. MORIBUND MASSES. The adject suffering of the Chinese : people is beyond conception bv the West. A Chinese sociologist, commenting recently on China’s population problems, says that over-population has reduced the people to a state of semilifelessness. Present conditions are plundering them deeper into this moribundity. Where the countrymen are virile enough, they enlist on the side of the despoilers; where they are fatalistic enough, they wait until the soldiery have had their, fill of tlie fruits of agricultural labour, and then apply themselves once more to recuperation.