News of the Famine
FROM Shantung province, Dr. F. F. Tucker, of
the American Board (Congregational) Hospital in Tehchow. writes :* We are just on the edge of famine conditions. Matters
will grow worse until the next wheat harvest. The recent
mimic civil war has not helped conditions, and the fact that in some nearby regions this is the fourth year of the
failure of crops augments the potential suffering. For
two years, flood! Last year the grasshoppers ate everything-! Now the prolonged drought!
In many of our outstations, only three-tenths of a food crop will be saved. One man had thirty acres of
land, which piece by piece he sold at small figures, in order
that the eight mouths of his family might be fed. The farm
animals were almost given away, and the last straw camewhen pawning the family bedding brought a mere 600 cash (twenty-five cents). Secretly he bought arsenic, put
it in the family porridge, and the eight are buried in one
grave.
In the same province (Shantung). Rev. A. D.
Heininger, of Tehsien, describes* a tour of 180 miles
in his Board's field (A.B.C.F.M.) which is in the east
central part of the famine area. The whole area
stretches from the Yellow River northward to
northwestern Shantung and southern Chihli, practically all the way to Tientsin, and includes a part of
Shansi province.
My survey leads to the conclusion (confirmed by the
observations of others) that with such crops as there are
to be harvested, together with leaves, alfalfa, and such
food as they can get, most of the people will be able (some
only with great difficulty) to take care of themselves for
two or three months. Beginning with January and last- ing for five months (until wheat harvest), there will be
actual starvation on a large scale. Whether life is saved
depends on whether help comes from the outside. Moreover, the immediate loss of life is but one part of the loss;
for extreme under-nourishing means increased susceptibility to disease and lowered vitality, and these meanthe birth of sub-normal children. A full generation andmore cannot entirely wipe out the results of one such
famine.
Grain can be brought in from more favored regions;
distribution centres can be organized; work can be ar- ranged for many who are able to work for their food.
But all this requires money. Two dollars per person per
month will sustain life. Take your pencil and figure it out_7,000.000 people, five months, two dollars a month.
The "Chinese Recorder" prints an article recording investigations made by Rev. H. W. Robinson,(of the A.B.C.F.M.) Paotingfu, Chihli; and sayseditorially that the statement, though written of
only one of the suffering provinces is equally true ofthe others.
This county is in the foothills of Shansi. As soon as we got up where the land cannot be watered from wells,
we found no crops at all. There has been no rain or snowfor over a year, except once in the spring. Nowhere, as
far as the eye could see in all directions, was there anything growing. No one was working in the fields, andalmost no one traveling on the roads.
In the December "Missionary Herald." Boston.
JANUARY. 1921 13
HOMES OF THE POOR IN CENTRAL AND NORTH CHINA A hundred families in another village have no grain.
They are gathering a vine that grows beside the road and
has a burr with sharp thorns for a seed pod. These burrs
sell for thirty coppers a catty, and are ground with chaff
which means the seeds from the weeds that grew in last year's grain, or with cottonseed, and made into a cake
which is steamed, Chinese fashion. Fuel, of course, is necessary, even for such simple food, and some people are tearing down their houses to get what wood is available. Although there was no grain to harvest, there might
have been a little fodder for animals had the locusts left
it alone. I saw one village as barren as though raked with
a fine-tooth rake, where I was told a few weeks ago millet stood nearly a foot high. The locusts came and stayed till
it was all eaten. Cholera is lurking in many villages, and I am told that
in the Lin Ching coal mine 200 miners died of cholera in one day. Still, this is not enough. A band of robbers have
been terrorizing the region, kidnapping people and demanding ransoms. In Honan, the Canadian Presbyterian Mission,
lo'cated in the north of that province, finds itself in one of the most destitute districts, as shown by the
following from Rev. J. H. Bruce :** Wuan county is hard hit by the famine. Last year
there was only half a crop, and this year there was practically none. Whatever was sown in June withered under
the burning sun as soon as it came up. Good rains came
in September, but too late to sow buckwheat. Beans, corn,
sorghum, sesame and root crops are also wholly lacking, save on small patches of watered land. There being no
fodder for live stock, thousands of cattle, mules and
donkeys have been slaughtered and sold for food.
For two months past many people have been obliged
to eat leaves of trees and edible weeds from the fields. In normal years much of the grain consumed in Wuan is imported from Shansi. But as the yield there this season was scarcely sufficient for local needs, export of grain was forbidden. Grain available for purchase is the farther
removed from the hungry masses by reason of the abnormal price. No wonder the more unruly elements take to plundering the granaries.
In connection with the famine relief the following
measures are reported from Honan :**
One hundred miles of urgently needed road construction has been outlined, and the question of irrigation
works is also being considered. The Chinese themselves
say of the best roads they build, that they are "good for ten years and bad for ten thousand." It is likely that
road-building will prove the most practicable form of
famine relief work. In addition, arrangements are in contemplation for schemes not involving work beyond the
famine period, such as the opening of special classes for
the young, the provision of methods of self-help for boys,
and paying special consideration to nursing mothers who
may take in and care for children abandoned under the
stress of famine.
**From the "Honan Messenger," Weihwei, Honan.
***From the "Presbyterian Witness," Toronto.
Under the title of "Why There is Famine in
China," Rev. William H. Mitchell of the Canadian
Presbyterian Mission, says :***
A Canadian farmer usually has at least one hundred
acres of land; a Chinaman with six or seven is well off,
and from this little patch supports not only his immediate
family, but some of his more distant relatives as well. He works hard for all he gets. Though he has only the
crudest of implements he has to try, by his own system of
rotation of crops and intensive cultivation, to get enough
for a livelihood. In normal times he is so short of fuel that he even tears up the wheat roots after his grain has
been removed.
The great trouble is irrigation. In many parts of the
country wealthy men have dug wells, and they water their
wheat fields from them, but the poor man has not the
money to do this and depends on the rainfall. China is a country practically bare of trees, and rain on this account
is very uncertain.
The Canadian often has a little laid by against hard
times, but the Chinaman has so much difficulty in procuring enough in ordinary times that he has not the slightest
chance to prepare for famine years. He may not even have enough seed to plant his next crop- Meanwhile he
has to feed himself and his family till that crop, if it ripens,
is harvested. When they have no food, they take to eating
grass and leaves, finally fall sick and the dreaded famine
fever breaks out. Some lose all desire to live and commit
suicide. Others make a fight for life and start to flee to some place where there is food. Hunger follows them,
for they absorb all the surplus food in any locality, thus
bringing the famine to a new section of the country.
Many never get very far from their homes, falling from
weakness, starved to death. Others are murdered by the more violent among the refugees, who try to get what little they can from their associates in misfortune. Parents are
driven to desperation by their own hunger and the cries of
their children, for whom they have no food. One hope
they have : there are rich men whose wealth saves them
from all danger of starvation, and they are wanting
slaves. The Chinese love their children, but they will sell their little ones in such an attempt to save their lives. Others are not able to give their children this chance. It
is death for one or the other; so the children are tied to trees to starve while their parents make an attempt to get away.
If they die in their flight, they lie by the roadside till somebody sees the chance to turn their clothes into money
to buy some little bit of food that may be left in the
country. Then the dogs come. "The dogs eat the dead,
and the starving eat the dogs," is the comment of one
missionary on a previous famine. Hunger is so maddening that many will not wait for the dogs to devour their fellow-creatures. The Chinese say that in the districts affected by the famine of 1878, "five out of every ten"
knew the taste of human flesh. In the Chinese calendar
only the educated know the real date of 1878; it is always
spoken of as "the year when men ate men." This year
will be branded in the same way unless help is sent
quickly