893.48/4008

The Ambassador in China ( Gauss ) to the Secretary of State

No. 933

Sir: Referring to my despatch no. 721 of November 13, 1942,26 concerning famine conditions in Honan, I have the honor to enclose for the Department’s information a translation of an article from the Ta Kung Pao (influential independent Chinese daily) of February 1, 1943, entitled “A True Description of Famine Conditions in Honan” and a translation of an editorial from the February 2 edition of that newspaper entitled “Look at Chungking and Think of Honan.”27

The first of these two articles, written by the Honan correspondent of the Ta Kung Pao, describes the widespread suffering of the people in 100 famine-stricken hsien in Honan and the lack of thorough measures of relief, attacks the government for its efforts to carry out its program of collection of taxes in kind and the compulsory purchases of foodstuffs in the face of the famine conditions and appeals for immediate relief for the estimated thirty million famine victims. The editorial calls attention to the circumstance that although the government is reported to have appropriated adequate relief funds there are still millions of refugees who have not yet received such relief and describes as “unendurable” the continued collection of land taxes from the farmers who are threatened with arrest and are forced to sell their land and even the members of their families in order to escape starvation or in order to pay such taxes. A contrast is drawn between conditions in Honan and the circumstances under which people live in Chungking. In connection with the latter point, the editorial goes on to point out the ineffectiveness of the recently applied price control measures, stating that it would require thousands of prisons to hold all the violators of the measures. It concludes with an appeal for relief funds for the Honan famine victims.

The publication of this editorial by the Ta Kung Pao resulted in a three-day suspension of the newspaper by the Government and foreign press correspondents who attempted to report this matter to their [Page 209] home offices were not allowed to forward their despatches. A Central News Agency (Government-controlled) correspondent states confidentially that conditions in Honan are even worse than the Ta Kung Pao article described and that many Chinese approved the publication of the article. One result has been a campaign conducted by the Ta Kung Pao for famine relief in Honan, and the publicity given to conditions in that province has evidently forced the government to take more positive measures to relieve the serious situation.

In this connection, there is also transmitted herewith a copy of a China Information Committee Bulletin (Ministry of Information release) of February 12.28 reporting the appropriation by the Government of CN$100,000,000 for the relief of famine sufferers in Honan and the efforts being made by several public organizations in Chungking to raise additional funds for relief work in Honan.

Respectfully yours,

C. E. Gauss
  1. Foreign Relations, 1942, China, p. 253.
  2. Neither printed.
  3. Not printed.