DESPERATE PLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21498, 23 May 1933, Page 6

DESPERATE PLIGHT

SUFFERINGS IN CHINA refugees from war zone. LETTER FROM NEW ZEALANDER The lack of an efficient organisation to deal with refugees from hostilities in China is referred to in a letter received by Miss Jean Stevenson, national secretary for the Y.W.C.A. from Miss A. M. Moncricff, a Y.AV.C.A. secretary at Peiping. Miss Moncreiff was formerly on the teaching staff of the Feild- « ing High School. * " There are several thousand wounded soldiers in temporary hospitals i n Peiping," says Miss Moncrieff, writing on April 4. " These hospitals are organised by the Red Cross Society and the Red Swastika Society. Some of the cases are very serious, but the most serious cases never come as far as this. They are looked after nearer the fighting line. " The big Imperial temple in front of our student centre, which formerly f housed the Kindergarten Normal School, in which we had our most promising student club, has been taken over by the Swastika Society as a hospital for a thousand seriously wounded. While the buildings were being prepared some of them were used as refugee camps for about two hundred of the many men , i and women and children who been. 1 driven off their holdings in Jehol and Heilungkiang by Japanese occupation or by bandits. " A-. Great Problem " "Most of these people originally came from Honan and Shantung, and were among the thousands who have migrated north in the past few decades. The Swastika Society Is bent on returning them to their original homes in Honan and Shantung, but the refugees are most reluctant to go because they have no homes and no peopie lett there, and they would be as completely without resources there as they are here. It is a great problem because attention is taken up with caring for the wounded soldiers, and the refugees are not getting much thought or c-are. "These refugees were, later moved out into a big covered market in the south citv. There conditions are very much worse. The camp is very dirty, crowded, and unsuitable. The group on the ground floor are peasant farmers without money, and sick and weary after their long treK to Peiping. lhey are herded together without privacy and no care beyond the somewhat dilapidated roof over their heads and the dry millet cakes that are served out every day. # • " Upstairs there is a very aitierent group. Thev are nearly all formerly well-to-do Chinese, who are the families of the officers of Ma and So, two volunteer generalii in Manchuria who retreated across the Russian border. Several of the women are Russians who have married Chinese. 'Some of them have a little money to go on with, and thev are better clothed. They are being drafted into smaller camps as places can be found for them, and are interested in keeping themselves and their clothes moderatelv clean and tidy. With these groups the Y.W.C.A. is preparing to work.

Lack of Imagination " The members of the Swastika Society have very little imagination, ana do not sec beyond a roof and food. We are interested in looking after sanitation and health precautions. As may be expected, infectious diseases have already broken out. Baths and Trash basins and changes of clothes Trill probably fall to the Y.W.C.A. to provide, and the Peiping Union Medical College social service department will provide medical and nursing care if the Swastika Society cares sufficiently to send in a formal invitation. " The Chinese array has no well organised medical corps, and various societies such as the Peiping I nion Medical College, the Red Cross Society, an-1 a union of women's organisations had to take charge. In some of the temporary hospitals there were not even any bed boards for the wounded to lie on. and they were on the floor without a covering of any sort, and not even a change of clothes. Material was quickly bought and the Y.W.C.A. undertook the preparation of 500 beds. These included straw mattress, quilt, pulow and hospital suit. These are already well under way."