Unfortunately this year a number of things militated against the suc-Cess of the meeting. The people along the immediate frontier still feel the effects of the Communist invasion of last year. While there considerable wealth in Tachienlu there is also very much poverty, and the price of foodstuffs has risen so alarmingly that many people have lived for months on the verge of starvation. Rice went up to over $90 per picul and while not many people live entirely on rice still the price of other things followed that of rice. Tsamba or ground barley rose to Rs. 26 for 60 catties, and corn meal which is very largely eaten by the poorer people, rose to about five catties for $1. And beef, pork and fat prices went up accordingly. Costs are slowly coming down but there is still considerable suffering among the Communist refugees. A woman stood at the front door the other day seeking to sell her two small children and similar cases are known all avec town.
Hundreds if not thousands of these refugees have flocked into Tachienlu from Danba, Mowkung, Tsonghua, Shuching and Daofu. Hundreds of them find a living day by day carr: ing wood, and hundreds found work in other directions. Thousands of Communists passed through the land like a gigantic swarm of locusts eating up anything and everything, leaving the country bare of food and animals, The Central Authoriti
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.