As Mr. A. H. George observed in moving 'a "well-deserved vote of thanks to Mr. C. H. Lowe for an excellent address to the British Universities and Schools Luncheon Club, most people in Shanghai have a general idea of the magnificent work done by the China International Famine Relief Commission, but Mr. Lowe was able to bring the point vividly to notice by "his. strikingly modest account of the efforts made by the Commission over a period of fifteen years to introduce irrigation, and-construction, ce-operative credit societies into the' rural cognisance of China, Mr. S. L. Hsu, in presiding, had temariced that long years of famine were considered by some Chinese philosophers to have had a definite effect on Chinese racial characteristics. Mr. Lowe supplied poignant reason, The ghastly reality conditions in South Shansi to-day where the people were reduced to terrible straits in their search for food and where children were being Sold to obtain a little ready cash, indicated the desperate state China's rural economy. Mr. Lowe took comfort from the experience of Egypt and India, where famines had been virtually abolished. There is no doubt that if the activities of government organizations now being. usefully encouraged by the National Economic Commission can be extended and fully developed, the Chinese farmer should eventually be able to eliminate the recurrent evils of famine and pestilence from the catalogue of his periodical punitive visitations, The remarkable appre-lation of land values in the nelghbourhood of Sian where the Honolulu dam, erected by the munificent dona~ tions of Chinese merchants of Hawaii. Is now helping to irrigate the fields, affords a clear example of what can be done by the movement which the China International Famine Relief Commission has so well established. Mention of the Commission naturally prompts expression of the hope that, Dr. J. Earl Baker who has left on furlough will find rest and renewed vigour in his native land and duly return at the end of that holiday to resume his wonderful labour with the Commission. His record of over twenty years as the sworn foe of floods and famine stands by itself.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.