'The Suechuen farmer, impoverished by successive waves' of civil war, local. banditry, the Communist ins vasion, advance taxes, and prolonged drought, is generally considered to be dry fuel for any revolutionary fire which may sweep over China. But it-has remained for a Shangha sociologist, just back front six months among. those embittered tillers. of soil which they do not own, to expose the Incredible cruelly of the gentry which has brought about this man-made misery.
The investigator Is Mr, Li Kuo-cheng, despatched by a" Shanghai institute of rural economies, Mr, Li went to Kuangnaihsien in North Szechuen early last spring, and spent six months among the farmers as a common labourer, gaining their con-Adence and compiling statistics.
The average farmer. he says sells his entire harvest (o meet taxes and rent, and though he may reduce his cost' for fertilizer, extra Labour and family food to the minimum, it is still necessary to borrow money year after year, running " progressively deeper in debt. Landlords demand of every tenant a statement of money earned and spent, Itis under these conditions that usury becomes active, Per cent. of the capital. In other words, if a single 10 cent. payment is missed, the usurer may lorally demand $1.20 on the following day.
All of these loans are, of course, recognized by the local law courts, since in nearly all districts the magistrates themselves are engaged in money lending. Even though a court may call upon a guarantor to pay a loan after three days of default, the farmer is still responsible for the payment of the interest and Penalties for those three days, Sometimes the loan agreement is. made in cash and the interest is, repaid in rice, but even here the usurer has many tricks. The customary interest rite is five to eight tan (133 1b.) of rice for a $100 loan made in the winter and repaid In the spring. At harvest time this rice is worth from $40 {o.$80. making the Interest rate 40-80 per cent. But the unsurers demand their rice for interest Just before the crops are harvested, when the price is very high, thus realizing about 200 per cent. on their money for a three-months loan, or 800 per cent, according to Western methods of calculation,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.