March 24.
Two years ago General Chiang Kai-shek inaugurated the New Life Movement. Just a month ago, reviewing the achievements of the; movement during the past twelve months, General Chiang Kai-shek severely criticized the results recorded, He guarded himself' against "ungrateful criticism": but) he gave it as his own personal im~ pression that the second year of the movement had not produced results comparable with those of the first. It is understood that, as President of the Executive Yuan, General Chiang Kai-shek has put the full weight of the Government behind a reorganization which is designed to place the movement on a firm basis. Among the proposals are the elimination of non-essentials from the programme in order to get. down to the realities of the needs of the people. This should have a double advantage. It will enable the movement to bid for popular' support and it will also vid it of those embarrassing activities which have exposed it from time to time to ridicule and resentment, The basic idea of the New Life Movement when it started was to improve the morale of the people, to find a common ground for govern~ ment and governed to work toward national solidarity. Like all move ments in their infancy, however, it attracted the enthusiasm of too-zealous social reformers whose discrimination between harmful vice and frivolous behaviour was not suMeiently acute, Hence came those difficulties when, for example, devotees of the movement attempted to dictate women's fashions, to come down with a heavy hand on amusements and the like, General Chiang Kal-shek has rightly eliminated these distractions: he has reduced the social reform programme to the simpler definitions: of "cleanliness" and "orderliness" and, starting from that point, is proposing to reorganize with cinct regard to the requirements of national economy, Success in developing a national movement depends on the extent to which it can command the voluntary enthusiasm of the people. Reform imposed from above can have but limited appeal and limited scope, General Chiang Kai-shek' recent declaration of his determina. tion to deal with corruption has been reinforced by departmental orders and by reference of the subject to the Control Yuan. Therein the Government recognizes the importance of meeting the natural objection of the people to a reform movement which, demanding virtue from the masses, fails to take into account the misdoing of the government's: own servants. On this point General Chiang Kai-shek is known, to have exceptionally strong views. He is right: the peasant and farmer sigh for good government by which they invariably mean freedom from unlegal exactions at the hands of oMcialdom. General Chiang Kaishek's military reforms have already gone a long way in establishing con fidence in his policy in this respect. Before he had taken the Army in hand, the idiosyncrasies of "sedan-chair" generals and the depreda~ tions of ill-disciplined soldiery had created a feeling of despair which made any thought of ce-operation, between the Government and the people entirely fantastic. The Government, it was held, had the task of governing: the people had to be governed, The notion that the Government had to justify. itself by solicitude for the welfare of. the people, so that the people in their turn could give the Government the support it deserved, seldom seemed to be entertained. There Is still much to be done before this ignorance and obscurantism can be entirely eradicated, but General Chiang Kal-shek, in his pointed address to the educated classes, when criticizing the New Life! Movement, showed clearly his grasp of the direction in which the Gov-' ments ernment's efforts should be taken.
The problem-of rural rehabillation has been put in the forefront of the programme. The Government, through the National Economic Council, has ample data. By train-Ing up workers under the New Life Movement to give impetus to provineial activities for the improvement of the lot of the farmer, the creation of a close bond between the Government and the people may be achieved. The farming problem differs greatly in the North from that of the South, In the North large landowners predominate. The crops are usually millet, wheat or Kaoliang. In the South a big landowner's "income may be no more than $1,000 a year while the farmer makes about $100 a year. Of that $100 worth of crops—fg Is usually rice—the farmer has to pay in November 50 per cent. to the landlord who usually selects the best. In addition working on so narrow a margin the farmer has probably had to borrow a picul of rice in the preceding February from the local usurer to keep his family going and that picul has to be paid back in two piculs in November. The farmer's main crop of rice is a subsistence crop: that is to say he gets no cash for it but uses it to feed himself and his family and pay his rent. For him pigs, tobacco and—in some areas—opium have cash values. That is why opium growing is so diMeult to suppress: because that crop can fetch much cash, It is obvious that an economic standard of this kind exposes the administra~ tion to unpopularity, The tenant farmer and, in some degree, the landlord are never able to hold up their heads. The money-lender, although not as usurious as in come other countries, has a stranglehold over the farmer. The Government may be inclined to appoint a Land Commission to make recommendations for the resettlement of and, the assurance to the farmer of decent system of tenure and the formulation of a scientific basis of taxation to enable administrative reforms to be carried into effect in support of land reform. The communist agitation in China, such as it is, is mainly agrarian and therefore develops naturally into banditry. General Chiang Kai-shek's various measures of reform, in Kiangsi and elsewhere, show that he is on the track of improvement. He will be considerably helped if the Government can effectively use the New Life Movement in its reorganized form to act as the interpreter of the new relations which it wishes to establish between itself and the people.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.