TITHE following article has been written from the notes of a traveller, who has just returned from the neighbourhood of Changsha and they deal with the efforts of civilians and the National Government who have as their goal the organization of 20,000 Industrial Ca-operatives in Chinese occupied territory, partly to solve the refugee problem and partly to rehabilitate the nation.
It is early in the evening as the train pulls out of Changsha for its trip east to Kinhwa, two to three days away. What a nightmare were those last days of departure from the skeleton city that once held half a million people. Yet, even as we move out, the forms of hundreds of labourers, men and women, can be seen clearing the debris from the streets and picking over the black ruins of solid blocks of buildings.
Most of the populace has, of course, Yun away and scattered, but just Where no one can say.
As usual the train is very full, the coaches being piled high with families and their bundles of possessions. Quite a few, I understand, are former Changsha people—small business owners and workers—who returned to see what was left of their properties ana now are convinced that life on unable to send out their goods, mainly teas and ramie fibre, through the usual route via Nanchang and Kiukiang, AN day long, ever since the two men had put up their first notice, crowds of would-be workers had pushed into the small store that had been opened as an office. Both men had been making talks to the groups of people and had actually begun lending money for operations, This latter point seemed to impress the whole town, normally some 80,000 people, with the strangeness of the project, but the assurances of the local officials had gone far to dispel the natural suspicion in the minds of these country folk. It was impossible to get much more news from my friend, for his thoughts could not poss beyond the notion of someone handing out money right and left. a more normal scale will have to be carried on elsewhere. One wondders what they can find going east, for many refugees are also pouring west and down the Canton Hankow line from the vicinity of Changsha. Shaoyang, in south-western Hunan, is s gathering place because it is a bus terminal and refugee centre, but I did not get down there this year to see conditions for myself.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.