Millions of Chinese starving and freezing to death
Thursday, 14 January 2010 00:00
Clippings from the newspapers of January 14, 1930.
Halifax Herald. Two million Chinese in the Shensi Famine area are “doomed to certain death from starvation and exposure,” according to a statement by Grover Clark, former editor of a Chinese newspaper and spokesman for the China International Famine Relief. In the Wei River district, two million out of a population of eight million have already perished in an eight-month period. Many froze when the temperature hit -32F. Clark “reports that entire villages have been wiped out by cold and starvation.” In many villages, “All the woodwork in the houses had been burned for heat.” People were eating grass and dried elm leaves, the leaves selling for “10 coppers” per pound.
Toronto Globe. While the rum-runners’ flow of Ontario liquor across the Detroit River has been diminishing, the flow to American drinkers via the French Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland has been booming. Exports to St. Pierre in the eight-month period to January 1 totalled totalled 787,688 gallons, more than double the amount in the corresponding period a year earlier. Most of the increase came in the last three months. Ontario liquor “exported to St. Pierre has actually been reshipped to Detroit and sold there for less than liquor exported directly from Windsor to Detroit. The explanation is, of course, that liquor exported to St. Pierre pays no excise duty, while liquor clearing for the United States must pay excise of $9 a gallon.”
LindsayPost. A fashion note from Paris says ladies’ skimpy “naughty nighties” are out of style for 1930, in favour of more ample and modest gowns, pleasing silk and satin manufacturers but straining purses. The 1930 gowns require three times as much material as the 1929 gowns. Bank accounts could be ruined by the most exquisite gowns, embroidered with silver and gold flowers.
Toronto Star. An eight-hour work day, unemployment insurance, equal minimum wages for men and women, the sale of beer and wine by the glass at restaurants, separation of the old age pension from poor relief in charity legislation, are among requests submitted to the Ontario government by the Dominion Trades Congress. Other items on the list include safety doors on passenger elevators, compulsory public liability insurance for car owners, a ban prohibiting people under 18 operating commercial vehicles or aircraft, and other changes governing motor vehicle transportation. The Council complained about long hours and low wages for truck drivers, and overloaded trucks and trailers, which were said to be damaging roads and highways.
Oshawa Daily Times.Gambling casino are relative new to Canada, but they’re old news in France. In 1929, reports the Daily Times, France’s 166 casinos collected $17 million in revenue (more than $200 million in 2010 dollars), of which the government took half.