@ Under the Japanese
there was a famine in
China, as this picture
of hungry Chinese
clamorjng for rice tes-
tifies. There was fam-
ine under the Kuomin-
tang with its extremes
of poverty and opuy
lence. Today there
are difficulties, hard-
ships, but there is no
famine in the New
China,

‘Famine’ in China -

the bigges
press lie

of the year

667QAMINE in China,” “Mil-
lions on the Move,” “China

faces worst famine for 80 years.”
These are some of the recent head-
lines in Canadian, American and
Bnitish papers.

‘They are part of the a
warfare now being conducted
against the Chinese People’s Re-
public.

At last the news agencies have
got hold of a tale which it is
hoped - will prove New China a
failure and discourage other peo-
ples of Asia from following the
Chinese example.

But China is not facing “the
worst famine for 80 years.”

Whai China is facing for the
first time in her history is a plan
to meet food shortage, efforts to
increase food production, and the

beginning of measures to elimin-
ate completely the curse of fam-
ine, flood and dust storms.

© ;

War and civil war have con-
tinued ceaselessly in China since
1916. The Japanese looted and de-
stroyed both in countryside and
city. -Chiang’s retreating troops

‘added their measure of destruc-

tion wherever they could.

Between them, Japanese and
Kuomintang have killed millions
of draught cattle, a double loss

since their dung no longer fer-

tilises the fields.

Former governments have let
the old irrigation systems go to
pieces. War has damaged dykes,
creating floods, and led to block-
ing of irrigation canals, creating
droughts. s

Even now Chiang’s American
bombers are attacking Chinese
cities and railways.

Is it any wonder that there are
economic difficulties and food
shortages in China?

But the Chinese people are fight-
ing the chaos of the past just as
they fought Chiang and the Amer-
icans.

And they are winning their bat-
tle for food just as they won the
military battle.

Last year Manchuria harvested
14 million tons of grain, an in-
crease on the previous year. This
year it plans to harvest 18 million
tons

Last year Inner instlvotlk pro-
duced over’ one million tons of
grain, with an average yield per
acre 10 percent greater than 1948,

This year Inner Mongolia is to
increase its harvest by 13 percent.

How is it being done?
eo

In these parts of China the land
reform has been completed. The
peasants, with the burden of land-

lordism gone, have a new incen-
tive in production.

High yielding disease-resisting
seed is being widely used.

The area under improved seed
this year is over 1,500,000 acres,
20 times the area under improved —
seed last year.

Next year it will be 20 times
greater again.

Michurin’s theories are being
widely studied to improve Chinese
agriculture.

In Manchuria, 5,000 improved
ploughs were manufactured last
year. This year a million acres
of formerly waste land is to be
reclaimed and brought under cul-
tivation.

In Manchuria, too, the farmers
have been busy digging new irri-
gation ditches, :

On two considerable rivers pro-
per scientific water control has
been started, with dams and elec-
tric power stations and reforesta-
tion projects all begun,

What is being done in Man-
churia and Inner Mongolia, most
of which have been liberated for
some time, is the salvation of
China to follow to prosperity.

At this moment trains are being
loaded in Manchuria, bringing
grain to shortage areas in north
and East China.

The Chinese People’s govern-
ment from its inception prepared
for food difficulties.

One of the first plans it adopted
was the plan for grain distribu-
tion and agricultural improve-
ment. Now it is being put into
operation.

The Chinese have enough grain
to get by till the fall. It is not
going to the Soviet Union.

The Hongkong manufacturers
6f the famine stories can’t tell
the difference between a grain of
wheat and a soya bean,

‘China has been exporting sur-
plus soya beans to the Soviet Un-
ion, but the surplus grain comes
south, ‘

Meanwhile, Soviet experience,
Soviet credits, and Soviet trade
are helping China in the battle
for grain,

Nor are the Chinese facing fa-
mine at the fal] harvest. The Chi-
nese ministry’ of trade calculates

(Continued on next page)

OW the Canadian daily press,
by publishing official pro-

Straits Times’
read:

correspondent

paganda handouts and falsified
dispatches from Singapore, is
presenting a distorted picture of
the Malayan people’s struggle
for liberation from British
colonian! rule, is shown by is-
sues of the Straits Times,
Singapore, recently received in
Vancouver.

In an obvious effort to sub-
stantiate official claims that
British forces in Malaya are en-
gaged only in a campaign of
“bandit suppression” and at thé
same time to cover up the costly
failure of the two-year campa-
_ign to crush the Malayan

people’s movement, the front

page of one issue is devoted to

a “battle” between 200 British
troops and two “armed bandits”
outside Kuala Lumpur. A grim
finishing touch is given to the
‘story by an accompanying pic-
ture showing two grinning Bri-

tish soldiers carrying in the

body of one of the “bandits”
slung on a pole.

The story written by the

“Police disguised as bandits
started off an operation last
night which ended in an enga-
gement between nearly 200
police and men of the Ist Suffolk
Regiment and, it is believed,
two armed bandits in a squat-
ter area four miles outside Kuala

“One Chinese bandit armed
with a pistol, a Chinese, woman
member of the Malayan Com-
munist party and a 10-year old
boy were killed. The security
forces suffered five casualties
— a British police cadet officer,
a sergeant and two privates of
the Suffolks, and a Malay police

constable. They were all woun-

ded.”

This story and the picture
were too much even for old
British colonial hands - among
readers: of the Straits Times.
One wrote to “protest strongly”
against publication of the dead
Chinese slung over a pole “and
the . gloating over his death
which is implied .. .” Another,

John St. John of Singapore,
commenting that the story “must
have induced some very strong
feeling among readers,” wrote:

“When I read the first para-
_graph in it, I concluded that a
printing error had occurred, and
that, instead of ‘two armed ban-
dits, ‘two armed bands’ had
been intendéd.

“Having finished the atl, I
regret to say, I was astounded
te discover that there was no
error. :

“In fact, nearly 200 police and
men of the Ist Suffolk Regiment,
armed with rifles, two flame
throwers, Brens and carbines,
two-inch mortars and hand
grenades, were held in an ‘en-
gagement’ with, as far.as I can
discover, two men, 2 woman and
a child, armed with a shot gun,
a pistol, some food, cooking
utensils, Communist pamphlets,
eggs, school books, a pencil,
eraser and ruler. >

“The bandits suffered three
killed our forces received five
casualties.

‘¥ do not underestimate the
difficulties of jungle fighting —

Britain’s trumped-up viekual in Malaya

a small force is unbelievably
elusive — but I do not consider
your article one. generally cal-
culated to spread confidence.

“In fact, I think that if I had
the misfortune to be a bandit,
a copy would possess a place of
honor in my scrap book.”
e

Canadian daily papers have
echoed the complaint of British
papers that “trade is dwindling
and British prestige ih falling
faster than ever.” They have
reported the ‘dispatch of new
troops to reinforce the 14,000
British troops already in Malaya,
in ' addition to Gurkhas, Dyak
headhunters and 30,000 special
police — in April, a Lincoln: :

and armored vehicles were sent —
to Malaya from Hongkong.

Canadian daily papers also
continue to publish propaganda
handouts about the killing of
“bandits” — more than a year
after the British Labor govern-
ment confidently predicted that
its suppression campaign would
wipe out all “bandits” within
three months. And last week

added a postcript
reporting that special

by gravely
guards

, of the Malayan

“Affairs Minister

had been posted so that Brita-
in’s “socialist” war minister,
John Strachey, might go swim-
ming in his shorts during his
current visit to Malaya.

But about one aspect of the -
Malayan fighting Canadian

. daily papers are silent, and that.

is the demands and aspirations
people whose
scattered guerilla bands are now
becoming a national liberation
army, with supporters even
within the British stronghold of
Singapore,

Maiayan tin and rubber, and
the huge profits to be derived

«from th e
heavy bomber squadron, tanks nh SPegers uncoubradiy: 1m

portant to Canadian External
Lester B.
Pearson in the cold war mis-
sions to Asia he undertakes for
Washington. But for the Canad-
ian people, whose jobs and living
standards are already being
Sacrificed to American cold war
concepts, support of colonial
Suppression in Malaya is incom-

patible with their own fight for
peace,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE

— JUNE 9, 1950 — PAGE 4