Page 93 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 93
labourers with grain, giving at first three, and later four, catties of grain in return for a
day’s labour. This enabled a man to take his grain home and thus augment the
family supply, and so represented indirectly aid given to the whole family. We
managed to buy large stocks of grain from territory bordering on the Tibetan country,
in the higher reaches of the Yellow River. These stocks were floated down the River
in, and on, skin rafts to the nearest point on the river bank to that of distribution, and
from there they were either carried or wheeled by porters (later we had to use animal
transport in some places) to the relief centres. The introduction of these food stocks
into the needy areas had the double effect of relieving the needs of our own
labourers and also lowering and holding down the prices of local supplies, thus
benefitting the whole district.
As already mentioned, the projects upon which we embarked were all of a sort
which would result in public benefit. We built or reconditioned over four hundred
English miles of road, built bridges, and dykes. We filled in trenches which had been
dug in time of war, thus reclaiming iarge tracts of good farmland, and we excavated
springs in the mountains thus increasing in volume the water which they fed down to
the village-scattered plains. We carefully avoided expenditure of our funds in the
purchase of material and where bridges were built the usual arrangement was that
the officials supply the materials and we provide the labour. Among our labourers we
had Chinese, Moslems and Tibetans, and during the last six weeks of our operations
we had a total daily roll of twenty thousand labourers. So much then for our labour
schemes.
Apart from the labour scheme, we had free relief depots in three main
centres where some ten thousand persons, largely women and children, received
daily food rations. This was done in order to take care of some of the large numbers
of homeless and destitute who had migrated to these towns and there constituted
both a menace and a burden to the city populace. Thus, through both the labour and
free relief schemes, some thirty thousand persons were receiving direct daily
assistance and I think we may safely conjecture that this would represent indirect aid
given to one hundred thousand people a day.
In the later stages of the work when the prospects of harvest were materializing
we changed the form of relief in the labour projects, from grain to money. This was to
assist the people towards resettling in their districts and homes. In one instance we
distributed a large amount of cloth, also as payment for labour. Every assistance was
given in getting the land planted for the Autumn harvest. In a certain area we
undertook a good deal of free seed grain distribution. In those districts where our
labour schemes were operating, the work was so regulated that the work of
cultivating the fields was practically assisted and stocks of seed grain were held and
supplied to the labourers in place of their ordinary grain ration if they so desired. In a
few instances we supplied farming implements to the totally destitute. Everything we
could undertake was done toward making the areas produce the largest amount of
labourers with grain, giving at first three, and later four, catties of grain in return for a
day’s labour. This enabled a man to take his grain home and thus augment the
family supply, and so represented indirectly aid given to the whole family. We
managed to buy large stocks of grain from territory bordering on the Tibetan country,
in the higher reaches of the Yellow River. These stocks were floated down the River
in, and on, skin rafts to the nearest point on the river bank to that of distribution, and
from there they were either carried or wheeled by porters (later we had to use animal
transport in some places) to the relief centres. The introduction of these food stocks
into the needy areas had the double effect of relieving the needs of our own
labourers and also lowering and holding down the prices of local supplies, thus
benefitting the whole district.
As already mentioned, the projects upon which we embarked were all of a sort
which would result in public benefit. We built or reconditioned over four hundred
English miles of road, built bridges, and dykes. We filled in trenches which had been
dug in time of war, thus reclaiming iarge tracts of good farmland, and we excavated
springs in the mountains thus increasing in volume the water which they fed down to
the village-scattered plains. We carefully avoided expenditure of our funds in the
purchase of material and where bridges were built the usual arrangement was that
the officials supply the materials and we provide the labour. Among our labourers we
had Chinese, Moslems and Tibetans, and during the last six weeks of our operations
we had a total daily roll of twenty thousand labourers. So much then for our labour
schemes.
Apart from the labour scheme, we had free relief depots in three main
centres where some ten thousand persons, largely women and children, received
daily food rations. This was done in order to take care of some of the large numbers
of homeless and destitute who had migrated to these towns and there constituted
both a menace and a burden to the city populace. Thus, through both the labour and
free relief schemes, some thirty thousand persons were receiving direct daily
assistance and I think we may safely conjecture that this would represent indirect aid
given to one hundred thousand people a day.
In the later stages of the work when the prospects of harvest were materializing
we changed the form of relief in the labour projects, from grain to money. This was to
assist the people towards resettling in their districts and homes. In one instance we
distributed a large amount of cloth, also as payment for labour. Every assistance was
given in getting the land planted for the Autumn harvest. In a certain area we
undertook a good deal of free seed grain distribution. In those districts where our
labour schemes were operating, the work was so regulated that the work of
cultivating the fields was practically assisted and stocks of seed grain were held and
supplied to the labourers in place of their ordinary grain ration if they so desired. In a
few instances we supplied farming implements to the totally destitute. Everything we
could undertake was done toward making the areas produce the largest amount of
