A Roman Catholic Father's Tragic Report on the Devastation of Southeast Chekiang In sending us the following report by Father Leon Marques, describing a tour of investigation through the Yotsing district, which he undertook recently on behalf of the Wenchow Sub-Committee of the Chinese-Foreign Relief Committee of Chekiang, Mr. Fred. W. Carey, Joint "Chairman of the Ningpo branch writes "The places visited by him suffered far less severely from the disastrous typhoons and floods of last autumn than many other localities, notably Chuki and Shangyi (Shaohsing) and Tsinyin (Chuchow). Nevertheless, indicating as it does the nature and extent of the distress which my Committee is endeavouring to alleviate, Father Marquis' simple and touching narrative may interest your readers, and, perhaps, induce those who are able to do so assist us in our tremendous task of feeding half-million starving people, scattered throughout the southeastern section of Chekiang.""
Commissioned by the Subcommittee of Wenchow to inquire into the havoc caused by the typhoons of last summer in the sub-prefecture of Yotsing, I made a tour of it lasting 35 days, from November 3 to December 7. Several months would be necessary in order to obtain a clear idea of conditions by oneself, and to check the figures given by the inhabitants, the gentry. or the delegates of the sub-prefect.
In view of the short time at my disposal, I. have only been able to make a superficial inquiry. I was also compelled to call for assistance from Chinese, whose honesty I can vouch for, but who, in spite of explanations given, have not always understood the meaning of the questionnaire they were asked to fill up. Hence divergences or lacunae perhaps occasionally exaggeration, and information incomplete, insufficient, and beside the. point. Whatever the figures obtained ix this >v, however, I have accepted them, contenting myself with summarise ing them, and you will find them the accompanying table.
Let me add a few words of comment on the answers to the questionnaire, which will not only help you, I hope, to understand them, but will convince you that we are on the verge of famine and misery greater and more terrible, without any doubt, than that of '1920-1921—which we must hasten to combat.
EXTENT AND NATCRE OF DAMAGE, A). Q. How many acres or "mow'?
of land destroyed?
A. 18,227, One would have a very inadequate idea of the extent of the havoc caused by the typhoons if one contented oneself with the figures given in reply to this question. For, whether or not they could be brought back into cultivation, 18,227 "mow," or acres, distributed over) the whole of the prefecture of Yot-sing (which boasts nearly 33 million acres) would be a negligible foss. In any case it would not cause the genera] famine which now menaces the whole of Yotsinghsien, and also, unfortunately, all the neighbouring sub-prefectures. What actually caused it was the complete destruction of the crops, partly the typhoons and partly the floods, The force of the wind laid in the mud that had been spared by the water, so that the crops still stand: tug began to germinate. That is the reply that the country people gave me when I said to them: "Your fields have not been flooded, therefore your harvest must have been good." And they were rare—fields like that! The whole of the low-lying parts of the sub-prefect ture disappeared beneath the water for a week and more—at the very least four or five days.
Also, to have a, better idea of the extent of the disaster, I inquiry ed into the number of "mow" in which the harvest had been' utterly destroyed by the flood, and I obtained the figure 213,483, If one adds to this number that of the fields that were Swept away, or covered with sand, gravel, or stones, the result is a total of 231,710 acres which have produced nothing, or very nearly nothing. It represents a loss of 115,850,000 Ib. of rice in the husk. And stil] these figures are not complete,—the delegate of the sub-prefect for Hongyangk'in, to the west of Yotsing, not having yet sent in his reply.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.