CHINA’S FAMINE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10401, 15 July 1912, Page 3

CHINA’S FAMINE.

I Nursed in the lap of luxury as we | Colonials practically are. it Is exj tremely difficult for ns to realise the | terrible havoc she recent famine has f wrought in China In an articli I* Written for the New York Chins Famine ' Belief Committee, Mi Charles F Gammon points ont thai in the coarse of one thousand. yean China has experienced no lass *han eiffht hundred famines, the ia.test one being spread over an area of 50,000 square miles, on which some three million people are living. Thi l Belief Committee has benefited by the defects and failures of the methods of former relief organisations, systematic economy forming the basis of .the negotiations that are now cn foot for the succour of the sufferers in China. The Committee apparently experiences no difficulty in distinguishing the most deserving oases, the acuteness of the necessity being plainly evident In the emaciated forma of the applicants for relief. The unspeakable horror of the famines that occur from time to time in Russia and Chino are some* thing beyond car understanding. I Comparative prosperity in China means rising with the sun, working hard until nightfall, a mud hut of diminutive dimensions, and food at which the average colonial workman would turn up,his nose. Butter and milk are Unknown quantities, though in prosperous years meat may make a weekly appearance in the bIH of fare. When a famine occurs in China, the man Who is fortunate enough to possess a farm will part first with his cow, then with hie water-buffalo that plough bis fields; next comes his farm implements and household goods. When these have been disposed of, he takes down the dears and windows of his mud bnt, and, lastly the timbers supporting thereof, Net until the family are left without a roof over their beads do they join the crowd cl wretched refugees that throng the streets. In speaking of this forlorn procession, Mr Gammon describes the awful spectacle of thousands of these hopeless specimens of humanity wandering aimlessly through the streets until, faint from exhaustion, they fall to the ground, never to rise again.