Evening star., 1939-11-19
Chino's Co-operotives Form
A New Wall, Visitor Says
At Least 4 Million
Refugees Now
Being Served
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.


"China's great new wall is her sys-
tenn of industrial co-operatives," says
Miss Ida Pruitt, its chairman, here
In Washington this week on leave
from the central headquarters of
this work in Hong Kong.
"By means of this Chinese indus
trial cooperative. movement, the
problem of rehabilitating a portion
of the some 10000, 900 refugees who
have fled from the old China into
the new is being met" she empha-
sized in an interview at a dinner at
the Cosmos Club.
Through the expansion of the sys-
tenn of decentralized industrial units
which is now successfully operating
In the $500 groups, selected upon
the basis of centers of population
all over the country, Miss Pruitt and
many other foreign and Chinese
leaders believe China is to find her
hope for the future.
They are, as well, China's great
humanitarian means of bridging and
alleviating the huge relief prob
lens with which she finds herself
confronted" Miss Pruitt added.
Refugee Camps Not the Thing.
From the background of 10 years
service with the Rockefeller Peking
Union Medical College, Miss Pruitt
was asked by the Quakers to make
a survey of the Shanghai refugee
relief situation and to establish q
nutrition camp for Chinese children
Very quickly she decided the answer
to the whole problem was not refu-
gee camps except as temporary ex-
pediences, but permanent occupa-
tions for their members, so that
with their families, they might re-
habilitate themselves. Industrial
co-operatives, singly or in clusters
or groups, she was convinced, would
not only help meet relief and re-
construction problems, but contrib
ute increasingly to the stability of
the Far East.
This movement now has a mixed
staff, consisting of $50 foreigners
and Chinese. 1t has the sponsor
ship of H. H. Kung, finance min
lister and president of the Executive
Council of the Chinese government
and the enthusiastic encouragement
Of Nine. Chang Kai-shek.
Its personnel" she said, includes
graduate Chinese engineers and ac-
countants, most Of them American
college alumni, who are among the
finest, ablest and most patriotic
young leaders to be found in China
today"
Among these are Frank Lem, only
Chinese to head a power plant in
Shanghai, and Lu Kwang Min and
KIP Liu, both of whom are trained
engineers as well as bankers
Seven dollars starts one person in
a cooperative enterprise, and no
less than seven persons must be in
cluded in unit. Most of the units
average from Is to 80 persons, al
though in certain of the larger ones
the range is as high as $50 in
dividuals.
The industries range from textile
weaving of all types, soap and candle
making, the manufacture of furni-
ture, tanning. metal processes and
all sorts of adaptations to utilitarian
needs. Among the flourishing types
of co-operatives are those which
take the front axles of old auto
mobiles and hitch them up to dis
carded wheels, thus evolving a ball
bearing arrangement which is fast
displacing the old wooden wheeled
carts of China in certain districts
All sorts of rare, ancient handicrafts
have been revived as a result of the
cooperative movement.
'The advantages of the industrial
cooperative system for the Chinese
are quite distinct" says Miss Pruitt
ITO begin with, it is very close to
the Chinese patriarchal setup in
character and thus needs no selling
program. Another advantage is that