July 28.
A very important pamphlet has just been issued by the China International Famine Relief Commission which it is well worth while to bring to the notice of all foreigners and Chinese. During the past three or four years heavy claims have been made on the generosity of the foreign and Chinese communities in the Treaty Ports, more especially perhaps because they are considered to be the wealthiest of the communities in the country and the best able to contribute to the sustenance of the unfortunates who have had to face famine conditions. Sympathy with these people has been unbounded, for' so many have seen on journeys through the interior the state of the country and the starved victims. On the other hand, however, money is not unlimited in the Treaty Ports, and sufficient has happened in famine administration in the past to cast grave doubts on the attitude of Chinese officialdom in this. connexion, and nobody is yet convinced that all surtaxes brought into being for the supposed relief of refugees have been devoted to the specified object. The Commission, with whose pamphlet we are dealing, rightly points out that as year after year fresh famine appeals are brought before the public, the response becomes smaller, and yet, in the districts subject to these catas-trophies the demands may be as great as ever. This is a serious matter, and utterly heartbreaking for those working in the famine areas, and what the Commission wishes to emphasize to the outside public is that it has a definite policy—principally related to the prevention of fatiine in the future—and all appeals to the public are made with this in: mind. future famine relief @ppeals, and although they have given much money in the past they will again give generous consideration to the claims laid before them.
The pamphlet which we have before us is modest in the extreme, but its value is great. We do not require to go into its minuter details but we may at' once proceed to one outstanding point—that within the past twelve years the frequency of famines has increased. Memories of the past seem principally confined to the great famine in 1876-79 when many lost their lives in Chihli and Shansi, while in later years the 1911 disaster, occasioned by the floods in the Huai Valley, stands out with great prominence. Since 1917, however, the average man could probably not say off hand which was the © worst famine year in the country, for in the intervening time not only have there been river floods which have swept crops away, immense damage by typhoons, whole districts parched and unproductive by reason of drought, but colossal damage by earthquake as well.
There seems to have been an almost unprecedented series o* disasters. Province after province has been smitten, until it has been impossible or the man in the street to say where things have been worst or which year has been most disastrous. A great deal has been due. to natural causes, but the Commission points out that equally the crumbling of all attempt at proper government has been a con-tributary cause. The public granaries have been left empty, river dykes have been allowed to go to ruin, and too many of those who have escaped the famine have been made a. prey to the insatiable needs of bandits so that their lot has, in the final accounting, been no better than those who went under by the action of natural - causes.
4, 1923. Tagts 12 PER ANNUM.
Facts such has these have given much cause for thought to the members of the Commission, especially as to the: future, and the plea that this future may be fully brought before the public is one with which all must sympathize.
To get the position properly before us, one paragraph may well be quoted. It says:—The, Commission takes the position in general that a condition of famine may exist without any immediate perceptible increase in the death rate. Through century ies of hardship the Chinese farmer has learned methods of subsistence which permit him to exist through many crises of want, but in a weakened condition, in financial slavery, and with no purchasing power remaining. The normal death rate in China contains a constant famine factor, for weakened constitutions after a diet of leaves, corn cobs and clay is not resistant to disease. Hence it is the policy of the Commission to extend relief, if means are forthcoming to those localities where drought or flood has reduced: any considerable portion of the _respectable countryside to a diet, of unwholesome substitutes.
Remembering this as well as the other facts which have emerged in the course of previous famines, certain principles have been laid down by the Commission. In the first place, there must be no pauperization of the people by doles, and all efforts at relief will be in the direction of a return for labour. This labour it is hoped to employ in the direction of public improvements making for the economic betterment. of the district, and furthermore the money so expended is as far. as possible to~be regarded in the nature of a loan to the people and localities concerned. Then in the case of districts liable to disaster through flooding, relief will be instituted in the way of flood-prevention works, and it is hoped to recover expenses, at least a great part of them, out of dyke taxes. We have considered it necessary to go into this matter at length because of the importance of the policy en-undated. It were well that the public should keep this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.