A GREAT EXODUS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 10

A GREAT EXODUS.

MIGRATING CHINESE. S . ■ OVER-RUNNING MANCHURIA. steam vessel, with Avo i i an , tl scarred upper works, Ciawla alongside the pier at Dairen. Her nnnrLf ar t Dack , e ., d with Chinese of the poorest class, old men. women, boys, and a i - ra K?ed and incredibly dirty, uuii a Joov of bemlderment on their stupid faces. They are sifted ashore by port doctors iIK so MW animals and herded in a shed. Presently they emerge, ome to open railway trucks into w&ich they ciowd with their unsavoury bundle: and insanitary quilts. Others, who have not e’ven the pittance required to pay for such mean transport, shoulder their belongings; the women carry cooking pot- and babies, the men are laden with more than doubtfnl luggage corded in bits of cloth. . id they start off, a dilapidated end pitinil procession, along the railway line, towards infinity. It is the beginning of their trek on loot to the promised land, which is Northern Manchuria. They are participates (writes a. spccuil correspondent in the Daily Mail) in the greatest migration in the world. Exhausted by civil war, bandits, and the rapacity of Suctui • ar Cords, these pilgrims have lett their poor farms in the provinces of Shantung and Chili, and are seeking a new hfe m the wilderness -hat lies dose to Siberia. xt A million A YEAR. Mo thing like this wholesale exodus of a people has been witnesses in modern times. They arc pouring out of the oppressed provinces of North-Western China at the rate of 1,000,000 a year. Many simply abandon their email holdings and leave their old. homes derelict without even attempting to sell them. It has become a custom for these voluntary C r .J 11 forsaking the homes of their torefathors to put a scrap of paper in one ot the empty rooms or under a stone in ?ike thifi" bearing an inscription May he who takes up his abode here Proper where we have starved.” ..he Japanees-owned South Manchurian railway facilitates as far as possible this Hood 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, ana thence into the thinly-populated tracts of Heilungkiang Province. Southern Manchuria is full They cannot stop there. All along the railway ones sees the tamily camps of immigrants. A blanket ? a A on ,fo ree sticks gives shelter little better than a dog kennel. The pilgrims live on what they can oeg or pick np. _ Babies are born, and not a tew die before the goal is reached. Hardships are great. Yet they show courage and a tenacity of purpose which is little snort or amazing. EAGER TO ESCAPE. f eager a_re these refugees to escape irom China that they cross to Manchuria in every conceivable way—by jnnk, open sailing boat, railway from Sbanhaikwau, and steamer direct to Dairen. Even id winter when the soil is frozen and culti vation impossible, they press northward preferring death there to death at home.Chinese guilds and other charitable ol fni, nlsa^loTls .P hi any on their way, ihe. goal is fertile agricultural land , u n ewly-opened railwas’s in North, East, and West Manchuria. The immigrants are given seed and a very roiall sum to keep them alive until the nrst harvest. The usual agreement with the landowner is on a crop-sharing basis. Even _ well-to-do and educated Chinese aa j e A? 1 -?- ln exodus t'rom Shantung and Lnili provinces, rather than endure lurther_ the uncertain and often dangerous existence of vassals under a local War Lord.