LITTLE PUBLICISED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4559, 13 April 1942, Page 6

LITTLE PUBLICISED

CHIANG KAI-SHEK ! “ Chiang Kai-shek’s reputation in I Free China is a ’curious one. He is I little publicised. Far more often does i the picture of Sun Yat-sen (founder I of the Republic) appear on the official I walls. “No halo is painted in about Chi- ! ang’s head, no eulogies spread at his j feet. But every farmer and housewife and beggar and priest and child | knows the Generalissimo. “ In all my months with the trijpfle there,” writes Joy Homer in “Sawn I Watch in China,” “ months of small I conversation and a thousand quesj tions, I could find no man or woman j willing to speak critically of Chiang i Kai-shek or of his Government. Nor ' could I find one who would acknow- ■ ledge the possibility of defeat. “ It seemed to me as if nothing could lower the morale of Chungking. The city was on fire with something more than patriotism. The challenge ■ they sensed now* was deeper than a ■ call to victory. Down to the last i small boy on the streets they felt the | sudden new birth of their country that had come like a miracle in the West. ! The uplift made them give away their i money by the millions of dollars, do | volunteer work in relief organisations i and orphanages, dream of a regener- | ated nation.