The Shansi wheat harvest has commenced, and the golden grain would appear to be a magnificent crop, But the dealers state that despite the hopeful appearance, there is a poorness in the general yield and that they do not see the exceptional phenomenal harvest in sight now, which the weather conditions right on all through the winter and spring led us to expect, The harvest, however, if not the best possible is at least very good.
Famine Relief has been and still is a big item in many districts, Conditions vary so greatly in the different counties that it is quite impossible to make any definite statements on the whole question, Take one village for instance and one's righteous indignation is at once aroused, "To think of these people applying for help," and to know that officials supported their claims etc!, Preposterous! Dissertation on the rottenness of China called for. Next village a few li away you may be moved to tears at the awful conditions under which some people are existing and_you get busy writing relief tickets "Why didn't we know sooner'? What a mercy we came!. And before you get back home you pass through a village where the relief measures have been so well managed locally that even an Old China Hand will say Aren't those Chinese simply wonderful, the way they can organize to help one another is beyond all praise."
And when one goes a little farther afield into neighbouring counties and sees or hears of the great divergences of conditions in larger areas we realize that only those who have been '"'on the job" are qualified to say much about famine relief and then only their own experiences, and the critics ought to understand this.
U. S. Masonic Gift for Famine' Relief Peking, June 1.
A telegram has been received from Washington, from the Sov-oreign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Southern Jurisdiction) addressed to Dr. John R. Hykes, Legate and Deputy of the Supreme -Council in China, which say! "Council authorizes my cable ing 240,000 relief famine sufferers. (Signed) George Moore."—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.