CHINA’S GREAT TROUBLES

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 9

CHINA’S GREAT TROUBLES

i FLOOD PROBLEM AND WAR !'■ • ■__ THE WORK OF REHABILITATION, j-l FEELING AGAINST JAPANESE. From time to time the Daily News has been "able to publish extracts from letters received by Taranaki friends from Mr. Rewi Alley, who has resided in China for the past five years. • Air. Alley, a brother of Alr.’G. Alley, the All Black footballer, is -visiting New Zealand. When he left Shanghai about a month ago, he informed the Dominion this week, things appeared to be about normal in the International Settlement,.but Northeim Shanghai and the cities of Kiang Wan and Woo Sung resembled a piece of war-time France. . The Chinese, he declares, have no intention of letting the Japanese do what they like. Air. Alley is a building inspector employed by the Shanghai Municipal Council, but in December was lent to the Chinese Government to work with the National Flood Relief Commission. The commission has for its director-general Sir John Hope-Simpson, lent by the League of Nations, who has had considerable experience of famine relief work in various parts of the world. Most of the damage was done in the Hupeh province, Mr. Alley said, and the flood was considered the greatest that had occurred in modern times. The flood directly affected some 50 million people and caused terrible destruction and distress. The commission was now devoting its efforts to reconstruction work and 250,000 refugees were being employed on a comprehensive scheme to prevent future damage, by a system of dykes. It was to the credit of the Chinese Government that, although during recent months it had been greatly occupied with trouble in Manchuria and Shanghai, it had been able to carry on. rehabilitation work in the flooded areas, and successfully prevent the flood waters from inundating the farming lands again. DEPRESSION, WAR AND FLOODS. In regard to the Sino-Japanese trouble, Mr. Alley said that, as Shanghai was the most important city in the East, and the commercial centre of China, • the holding up of trade by the hostilities necessarily meant the loss of many millions of dollars. The effects of .the present world-wide depression, which were previously felt in China, were considerably accentuated by the war, and also by the great floods. The flooding of vast areas of land rendered the whole year’s crops useless; there was practically no economic return from the whole of the Yang-tee valley. For instance, one small district in the Ifupeh province which produced 2,000,000 dollars worth of cotton in 1920, produced nothing last year, and would probably produce nothing this year. The floods covered a large portion of the provinces of Hupeh, Hunan, Kiang-si, Anhwei and Kiangsu. In Kiang-su. a great deal of the water was still on the ground and there the Government were building dykes and great canals, which probably would not be finished until this year. FAAHNE RELIEF. Fbr two and a half years Mr. Alley worked with the International Famine Relief Commission. His work took him up into North-west China, Inner Mongolia and in the Suiyuan province.i In this area there had been a succession of droughts for three years which had rendered a large proportion of the rural population destitute. During operations there, the Chinese Red Cross Society rescued a group of better class boys, one of whom, A. Tuan, Mr. Alley subsequently adopted, and who is accompanying him on his present trip. The boy, Mr. Alley said, was one of the few who had received any Chinese education, and for the past two and'a half years had been attending St. John’s YJM.C.A. School attached to the University of Shanghai. He had learned to speak English in that time. The school was now closed owing to the war, and in the recent months the boy had beenworking with the Chinese Red Cross Society assisting with the war casualties. ANTI-JAPANESE FEELING. • Chinese people were terribly bitter against the Japanese, and it would take a°great many, years before relations between the two races were normal again, Mr. Alley said. The hostilities had keyed the Chinese up to a high pitch of excitement, and created an exceedingly strong anti-Japanese feeling. The position at present was that the Japanese had occupied portions of Chinese territory, and in Kiang Wan and Woo Sung (outside the International Settlement in Shanghai) there were large numbers of troops concentrated together with considerable quantities of warlike material, including aeroplanes. When Air. Alley left .Shanghai he saw several Japanese transports discharging contingents of troops, and Japanese warships were anchored outside of Shanghai, Hangkow and Nanking. No ope could tell what would be 'the outcome of the position in the future, but it was certain that the Chinese were not going to let the Japanese do just what they liked without any opposition.’