CHAOS IN CHINA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17180, 10 February 1930, Page 9

CHAOS IN CHINA

LIFE IS "DIRT CHEAP" BANDITS INCREASE "Economic conditions in China are appalling," declared Adjutant Sowlon, a missionary of the Salvation Army on furlough, in. an address in Wellington on Sunday. Thousands of soldiers, he said, were living on the country, and wherever these were quartered the people had to feed them. The abnormal taxation was crushing. Famine, Hoods, and locust plagues added to this bad produced conditions disastrous beyond description. Tho official figures stated the population of Pekin to be 1,342,000, and of this number 400.000 were either very poor or in absolute, destitution. There was no work because' of the lack of money and insecurity. 'The number of bandits," he continued, "has greatly increased, and robberies with murder and violence are rapidly becoming more common. The kidnapping and holding to ransom of the rich is an everyday affair, and a considerable number of missionaries have suffered such treatment, some being brutally murdered, others maimed. Bandits, sometimes in companies of over MGO strong, swoop down on city or J town, overcome the soldiers (if there are any), loot and shoot, and if there is resistance, set fire to the place. Other bandits tiro met in twos and threes, scores, fifties, and hundreds. Life is 'dirt cheap.' but the cost of living has more than doubled, and isStill rising. "In spite of ihe chaotic; condition of affairs', the Salvation Army is struggling to carry on its work, and is slowly gaining ground. Whereas, formerly strong national prejudice militated against peoplo joining an organisation with foreign connection. Army halls are now crowded with people, and open-air meetings call forth respect and attention. "To preach the Gospel and simultaneously hold out a 'helping hand" is the Army's policy in China, as elsewhere, and realising the dire distress which inevitably follows in the wake of civil war, banditry, and drought, such as has.' come upon certain provinces, plans have; been made to ameliorate the distress of seme of the hundreds of thousands of sufferers. ' "Apart, from the usual winter relief carried on by the Army in Tien-tsin and Pekin, by means of which, this year, food was provided daily for over ten thousand people, the Army undertook similar operations in the famine-stricken areas. Conditions were found to be appalling: men literally dying as they walked about— fs\d when, finally, they dropped in the streets, they were being thrown outside the city to ravening dogs. Using funds allotted for this purpose, some sixteen thousand are being fed every day at tho great kitchens opened by the .Army."—Dominion.