Jppressed Peasants' Re-financing Measures Bring Them to Eventual Bankruptey By HAcvore Hanson In East Africa along the shores of Lake Nigeria lies the kingdom of tne orang outing. As you probably know, the orang outing is the wisest of all the monkey tribes, and the philosopher of the animal kingdom. Its culture has spread far and wide among backward animal species. The centre of this culture is along the western shore of Lake Nigeria, where the ancient tribal headquarters are situated, Unfortunately the masses of orang gutang do not enjoy the bright lights}plan would undermine the warlord, of the culture centres. They -afe scattered - throughout the jungle gathering scanty harvests of bananas, which is the staple food of the orang outing. These bre hard working fellows, but rather dull They sell their harvests }for coconuts, is the official money of that This not very satisfactory situation went on for a long, long time, till one day a very strange thing happened. A warlike tribe of rhinoceri care swimming across Lake Nigeria. invaded the bright cities, and settled down, They brought with them uncomfortable ideas about efficiency in eómmerce and industry. Every banana tree must produce twice as many bananas. To carry out; this plan, coconuts were necessary for capital. From all over the kingdom, hard "earned coconüts eme rolling out of the jungle into the bright cities.
Self-Congratulation As the cities grew rich, the foreign rhinoceri congratulated themselves, because they had filled their pockets with coconuts, and made life more enjoyable for their neighbours in the city. No one seemed to worry about the orang outing in the jungle, the poor collector of bananas. There had always been too many of them, and they were always: fighting some kind of civil war.
One day something happened which made the city dwellers take notice of the jungle problem. The banana collectors had formed an army and threatened to attack the cultural centres along the lake shore. Hastily, the tribal chiefs sent out another army to scatter them, which they did after years. of fighting But the country was then roused toa long-evaded question: what can the city dwellers do to help their country workers? That is the problem of the jungle, and the problem of the Chi hose reconstructionist.
Parallel Applied To simplify the question, suppose we construct an average Chinese farm in the middle of this city. We, shall base our model upon the statistics of Professor Buck and his research staff at Nanking University. If we clear away all the' buildings from a city block, we will have an area 500 feet square; that iş roughly four acres, Since the average Chinese farm is but two acres (twelve mow), we must first Sdivide the city block in half. On each half we will erect a mud or brick farm house and tool sheds costing $131. In the tool sheds we will put a plough and a few implements costing $9.21 for each household. One water buffalo will be shared by the two families, buf each has two hogs and six chickens. "That is all their worldly possessions, On one farm we will put six people, on the other five, making an average of five and one halt. If each family works hard, and the gods are friendly, the annual income will be $325 apiece. That is quickly spent. The landlord takes $75, because part of the land is rented. The family eats $150 worth of food during the year. Taxes, that is the legal taxes, average $8 a farm, but special assessments by magistrates and military genera average two or three times that much. Suppose we say the Government takes $20 from each farmer. That leaves $80 for fertilizer, seed, clothing, ancestor worship, marriages and funerals. When the Chinese New Year rolls around, the lucky farmer breaks even.
"Acts of God"
If this is a cross section of Chi 70,000,000 farm families, many city dwellers: will remark that the farmer is not so badly off. But the picture is not yet completed. One year in five the farmer loses part or all of his crops. It may be flood or drought, it may be bandits and civil war or it may be only a change of magistrates which is accompanied by heavy squeeze.
These forces combined have pushed the average farmer into debt and there is no allowance in his budget for repaying the deficit.
Once in debt, the farmer re-finances his obligations as long as he lives, For the average indebtedness of all farmers in China, the lowest estimate. which I have seen is $70 a farm (some economists say as high. as $350). If the lowest estimate is Accepted, China's farm debt now totals the alarming figure of $4,900, 000,000. It may be much higher. This figure has been growing steadily forger since the Taiping Rebelli in the middle of the last century, and is still going up. It is the key to China's agrarian problem.
With this average farm set up in front of us, we can.now open our history books, and see what relationship there was between the farmer and-the ups and downs of the Chinese dynasty.
Students of economic' history have boiled down 2,000 years into a single formula, which is applica able to almost every dynasty. First there was.a dynastic war. which, BY local and-orgáhized violence, greatly reduced the population. This brought temporary-.prosperity because there was a surplus of land. Population began to grow. Increased wealth invited foreign invasion. To defend the country, tax assessments were increased, Poor farmers were forced into bankruptcy, their land possing to the landlord, These large land owners, because of political privileges; were often exempted from taxes, which throws a still greater burden back upon the peasant, speeding up the economic collapse. On the brink of disaster, a fresh rebellion sweeps across the country, reducing the population, and probably unseating the old dynasty. The cycle begins anew.
History Repeated All these symptoms of Chinese history can be observed upon the average Chinese farm during the last 80 years. As the debts of the farmer rose, land passed steadily into the hands of the gentry, till" tó-day one third of the 70,000,000 farm households are lanaiess, another quarter have lost part of their land: only 42 per cent. of the farmers can still call themselves independent. This march to bankruptcy from 1850 to 1927 was the direct cause of the Communist civil wars from 1927 to 1937.
To turn the tide of rural bankruptcy, the Central Government in Nanking announced in 1933 several reconstruction programmes which would end all civil war. The first the second would eliminate the Con munist The medicine for the war lord was rapid communications—roads and railways, air lines, telephone, telegraph and radio. Four years has shown remarkable activity, but so far it is dificult to find any direct benefit to the farmer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.