OCR Text |
Show GREAT CROWDS- DIE IN BARE FIELD MH Engineer Describes Horror of Scenes Among Famishing Fam-ishing People NKW YORK, Feb. 18 Thirty thousand thou-sand Chinese gathered on a arrant bare field ouUlde Tientsin, China, waited patiently for food which never arrived, and then slowly died there, K. S. GUnes, American enrineer, reported upon hiii rrlval here after passing-six months in the famine stricken areas! of north ChinaT j Th condition of the starving hordes I was so pitiful, Mr. f; lines t:iid. that he "d!d not have the hart to take! photographs of purh misery." He said th.tt the crowd at Tientsin had Rath- I redbcciiusetheybelitived food woultlj reach them there nnre qiiickly than in the country. Alony a roadside near the field he told of tweinif the bod it i of a whole family father, mother and five children each a few yards apart, where they had dropped nnd died. "The crop failures have ben almost complete in the five great provinces that make up the northern " part of China proper Chihlt, Shantung. Shnn-hl. Shnn-hl. Shensl and Honan,' tutid Mr. fJlines. "This i the. part of the country coun-try n round l'ekin, south of Mongolia and Manchuria. UNABLE TO HELP. Kxplaining why the sections of China not strirkm by famine were unable to relievo the starvation districts, Mr. ()inc4 raid: "China is largely on agricultural nation. na-tion. Ninety per cent of the population popula-tion lives on the tiny farms into which the country is divided. The Chinese work their 'and to the limit, but they cannot raise more than enough to feed themselves. Kach district can raise barely cinji'gh ftod to support its own people. That is why the 'prosfierous' prnvlnces have been au to do so little lit-tle for the famine Mrit ken ones. They have not the food to send. "The crops in north China have failed since 1913. The p-ple have been unable to get more than rsp of food from other parts of Chinu. Thev have leen unable to get much from ' outside, because food ha a been high priced all over the world. They have tried to move to better districts, where they ould raise crnps. but mi eh distr.cts arc so far and they have had such poor resources that they have died like flies on tl way. TEN MILLIONS. "There Is no question that more than ten million Chinese will starve to denth this winter and spring unless food is rushed to them. j lie declared that millions will die ; denplte aid that the population of 45.000.0n0 in the famine districts la in such dire straits that It will be a physical impossibility to rush enough food to t hem to sa v all. (ireat irrigation projects control of flood producing streams and improvement improve-ment of transportation were cited by Mr. Glines aa the only salvation of the agricultural and economic life of China. "These things mill be done in time." ' he said, "for China is awake. America will probably' have a big part In this fu 1 1 j re of c h ! na. bu t we must lay aside these things for the (naent and devote evry efftert to getting food to the starving millions." |