THE COLLAPSE OF LIFE.

Putaruru Press, Volume V, Issue 175, 10 March 1927, Page 3

THE COLLAPSE OF LIFE.

| CONFISCATION AND STARVATION. Railways in a Ruinous State. ! Twelve months ago (states the Peking correspondent of the London Observer), a local writer urged that the Chinese railway system had come to the end of its tether of productiveness and usefulness. It would soon prove a curse to the pcopie, he said, and so he 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 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 dipj lomats have had to resort to representations. But to no purpose ; if you want things done in present-day China the worst possible method is to enlist diplomatic support. The Chinese flout the diplomats nowadays out of sheer cussedness. The coaldealers have been more practical; they have started a camel service with Shansi province—the source of production. This, after all efforts to obtain waggons from the military have failed. WAR LORDS’ SQUEEZE. The war lords have practically closed the railways under their control to coal conveyance, and only very grudgingly allow any facilities for the transport of foodstuffs. What little coal comes in is subject to extra imposts for military expenses, as well as to such “ squeeze ” as the soldiers care to place on its release to the merchants. In consequence, prices are mounting; with the help of falling values in silver, they are overwhelming a population already reduced to misery by civil war. Much of China’s production has also to yield its quota to the n.-litary at the source. Farmers and traders have to pay dearly for the privilege of feeding and looking after the cities. Obstacles are sometimes in- | superable, and then the cities have to starve. Mars has to be served j first, and, then when he is satisfied, he is always likely to go on the rampage and indulge in wanton destruction of the portion left over. The entire country ministers to him, and he has at least three million minions to secure that allegiance. RAMSHACKLE ENGINES. In one of the IS provinces it was recently computed that one-sixth of the population, or 300,000, were under arms. The estimate was made by independent observation, for the investigator could get no help from the Governor, who admitted quite frankly that he was ignorant of the strength of his command, and would be glad to get exact figures for himself. When the soldier is king, it is much more advisable to attach yourself, however loosly, to the side of the i despoilers than to that of the despoiled. That is the philosophy of the countryside in China to-day. Common sense should apparently dictate some care of the railways at ] a time when they are such a valuable | adjunct to the machinery of war-raak-I ing. But the war lords are notoriously deficient in common sense. Their I railways are hopelessly mismanaged ! and in a deplorable state of disrepair, i No receipts are allowed to come to the Ministry of Communications, the organ nominally responsible for China’s nationalised system, and no foreign supplier will now supply materials until an attempt has been | made to clear existing indebtedness. So grevious is the state of things on the Peking-Hankow line that several trains are allowed to run with impaired brakes. The drivers manage to stop the trains at the stations byshutting off steam a mile outside. MORIBUND MASSES. The abjact suffering of the Chinese people is beyond conception by the West. A Chinese sociologist, commenting recently on China’s population probleihs, says that over-popula-tion has reduced the people to a state of semi-lifelessness. Present conditions are plunging them deeper into this moribundity. Where the countrymen are virile enough, they enlist on the side of the despoilers; where they are fatalastic enough, they wait until the soldiers have had their fill of the fruits of agricultural labour, and then apply themselves once more to a recuperation.