The erying need of this village, and of every village in China, cording to every qualified economist who has studied the question, is an abundance of rural credit at low rates of interest. As was previously mentioned, China's rural debt is at Joust $4,000,000,000, Very little of this credit comes from modern banks In the large cities, According to a sur: vey of the National Agricultural Research Bureau in 1096, modern banks have supplied only 24 per cent, of all rural credit, and ce-operative societies another'2.6 per cent.
'The remaining 95 per cent, is advanced by landlords, money lenders, provincial officials, "merchants and military' leaders who extract whatever a helpless farmer can be forced to pay. Several Chinese magazines have recently been investigating these extortion methods, and have exposed specie eases," giving all details, where loan sharks have charged from 700 to 1,000 per cent. Interest, and bankrupted "a Tand owner in five years. That is the major agrarian problem of Chi which "reconstruction has hardly touched, The second problem is the corrupt tion of local government, which is receiving scant attention, 'The third problem, one which has been greatly exaggerated, is the ques tion of the landlord and' the rent which he charges. Radical agitators with their theories based upon the European landlord problem in the days of Karl Marx, are only too anxious to blame the polty capitalist for all the evils of rural society. The modification of the Communist. land programme in Kansu to-day seems (0 Indicate that the original programme was not entirely suited to China, Low in Bankruptey Cyolo sum up, the Chinese farmer is at the bottom of the old cycle of bankruptey, "which hag always in istory' produced a widespread robellion, "To ward off further civil war, the "Government _Inunched in 1933 @ programme of rural reconstruction which is excellent on paper, could solve every problem of the ynner except over-population, Today the work is only four years old, The two most vital—issties—cheap credit and district corruption—have hardly been touched. Free education, health and agricultural services have shown some hard earned results in Kiangsi, but the snail-like pace and the high cost of the experiments seem to Indleate the impossibility of fox tending this work throughout China in the near future, 'The greatest encouragement Is a growing liberalism among' the edu-ated classes which will some day force upon the conservative element of the Nanking Government a more aggressive plan of action,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.