CHINA THE ONE MAN MIRACLE

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 137, 28 August 1942, Page 2

CHINA THE ONE MAN MIRACLE

“Action, always action. The only failure is failure to act.” , This is the creed of Generalissimo. Chiang Kai-Shek, the man with’ the heart of a soldier and the soul of a poet, who has created the new China.

By

in the “Daily Mail.”

. Banded together in groups,- whose only ‘ common, language was their knowledge of a craft; the Chinese people got to work.

The Generalissimo took the advice of , technical experts, Chinese, Europeans, Americans, anyone who would help him to organise China.'

Gradually materials were imported from abroad, and new methods taught. , . \

Men shared and shared alike the profits of their work.

In a matter of months they learned new ways that in peace-time might have taken years to teach. •

: The x same sort of thing is going on in' agriculture in the free district of China. .•

Farmers who have ploughed their land’ by the methods of 1,000 years ago now use the latest American tractors. . . ’

, Experts travel round the villages, instructing, organising, leaving behind them a flourishing movement where everyone does his bit for the general welfare of the community.

The hospital service, assisted by the Red Cross of Britain and America', has been similarly reorganised, though here again it is only gradually that they have been able to get in proper medical supplies.

Measures of hygiene and sanitation are also going on to check the epidemics and diseases that once riddled the vast population of China.

Like all other great reformers Chiang Kai-Shek realises the vital importance of education.

Learning has always been valued in China, but it was the privilege of the few, and not, of course, for women.

Now men and women students, working side by side, are among the foremost workers for the New China.

For years Chiang Kai-Shek has had to be a fighter, first under his brother-in-law. Dr. San Yat Sen, who freed China from the corrupt feudal dynasty which ruled it; secondly, as head of the Government which was opposed

by factions and rebels and finally, since 1987, against the Japanese. \ But through all . his fighting he has been guided by a vision, a dream which, under the name of ..the New Life movement, galvanised China out of . civil war and apathy, turned her into a united- nation determined; to fight to victory. The Generalissimo stands for the New China, free, educated, borrowing what is good in the way; of Western modern ways, but keeping the ancient spirit and culture built up by the Chinese philosophers through centuries. And one of the most amazing things about this people and their leader is that through all the terrible sufferings of the five-year war they, have forged ahead with their aim, letting nothing stand in its way.

When the Japanese invaded the China coasts' hundreds of thousands of miserable refugees, many wounded, poured inland.

From the desperate need of organising them there sprang up the great Chinese industrial co-operative movement.

Starting with a number of printers, who clubbed together to print notices and directions for the homeless wanderers, it spread all over China, in every sort of trade.

Refugees arriving at a village stated their trades, and were given work to do. Z

There was urgent need for agriculture, manufacture of all sorts to clothe the people and supply the army, munitions, buildings.

Moving from the bombarded coast towns, they migrated inland, often walking hundreds of miles, and set up their universities again.

Many of them combine learning with guerilla warfare, risking their lives to go into Japanese-occupied territory and instruct the peasants in resistance against their oppressors. Others tour the villages, teaching

people to read, giving lectures, passing on the latest news. . The language difficulty was immense in China, because a man from the south spoke a completely different Chinese from a northerner. The Generalissimo is doing all he can to abolish the differences of dialect, to get together people from different provinces ,so that each can learn to understand the other.

He has sponsored a simplified alphabet, which taking the place of the many thousand lettered old version, now makes it possible for people to learn to read in a fairly short time. (It used to take years.) t „ '

War or no war, books and pamphlets continue to be , printed in, large numbers, and those who can read pass them no to their neighbours by word of mouth.

The wireless is greatly used by the Government, both as an educational method, and also to instruct and encourage the people of occupied China.

*ln everything that Chiang-Kai-Shek does for the welfare of China he is assisted by his equally famous wife. She it is who carries on a vast amount of the organising, and it would be hard to say which of the two was more popular and more of an inspiration to the Chinese. The Japanese hoped to crush China, to reduce her to slavery worse than she endured beneath her feudal princes. In 1937 they attacked a people who had endured civil squabbles for ten years, who were seemingly worn out and apathetic. In five years everything has changed. Chiang Kai-Shek’s dream of his New China is well on the way to being fulfilled. In spite of war and suffering the great Chinese revolution moves on by leaps and bounds, and the invader has shortened ’the task of the reformers by forging an unthought-of unity among all types and classes of Chinese. “Endure suffering, and you cannot fail to win victory,” said the Generalissimo to his people as, alone,. they fought against a brutal and heavilyarmed invader. , The Chinese have endured and they will reap a great reward after the peace. \