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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1957)
Monday, Mar 20' 1957 MEDFORO (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE FIVE Red China's Five-Year Plan in Trouble As Shortages and Grumbling Dndocaie By WENDELL S. MERICK United Press Correspondent Hong Kong (ffi Adminis trative mistakes, shortages of goods and grumblings among the people have forced Red lead ers to slow the pell-mell eco nomic expansion of Communist China. In its final year, China's first five-year plan is in trouble. The Communists blame floods and drought but they also admit that they tried to do too much too fast. They confess that they made errors and failed to win the wholehearted cooperation of the people. Not Utter Failures The overhauling of what Pei ping hoped would be a mam moth economic juggernaut should not be construed as a sign the Reds are utter failures. That is not so. They have made tremendous strides. But they have now been forced to cut rback their ambitious goals. - Attempts will be made this year to strike a better balance between industrial production and output of consumer goods. The revised program does not mean, however, that the man- in-the-street will necessarily win commodities," Chia said. a higher standard of living. Both industry and the public will have to settle for less. Shortages Upset Public China's 600 million inhabi tants are leveling more and more criticism at the regime, re ports from the Communists themselves indicate. The public is upset by rising prices and shortages of food and consumer goods. But Chia To-fu, vice chairman of the National Economic com mission, told a conference in Peiping, "The people's liveli hood can only be improved gradually, on a small scale and with low speed." The 1957 program calls for cuts in capital building because of a steel shortage which led to a reduction in the manufacture of machinery and building ma terials. Production of oil, coal, iron, steel, copper and cement "had to be cut," Chia said. Other Shortages He admitted such other short ages as cotton cloth and yarn, edible vegetable oil, paper and timber. "Certain gaps are found to appear in the market supply of Is That So? By EUGENE BURNS Ranger-Naturalist Perhaps the lowliest of man's allies in World War II was the one-footed, common garden-va riety, gray, shapeless slug who leaves behind him a tattletale silvery trail of slime. His battle duty? Gas detection. Of all "gas detectors" used by man in tunnels, underground munitions plants, submarines, and trenches, these backbone- less slugs are by far the most efficient. Where white mice,, rats, ca naries, goldfish and cats may de tect up to one part of gas in 4,000,000 parts of air, our one- footed slug can detect one part in 12,000,000 three times as efficient. What an important ally to have helping us against being taken by surprise by one of man's most terrifying weapons modern poison gas which blinds or kills by destroying the blood, the nerves, or by suffoca tion men exposed to the latter type "of gas have clawed their throats open in their maddened frenzy to get air. (Horses, mules, camels, oxen and elephants, incidentally, can withstand a higher concentra tion of most poison gases than man without sustaining serious damage.) To be sure, poison gas is to day outlawed among decent na tions. But all nations must be ready: and it is no secret that all powerful nations had it in large quantities during the last war Germany, Russia, Italy, France, England, Japan and the U. S. Has long History Poison gas has a long history. In the Peloponnesian war be tween Sparta and Athens, 431 404 B.C., Greek used suffocating gas against Greek; in the past century, shells containing gases were used during the siege of Charleston in the American civil war; and today poison gases have been perfected which are i,too terrifying even to contem plate except by the realistic against their use. God forbid that they, with the H-bomb will ever be unleashed. But yet, if they are, standing defense be tween a helpless city population and a ruthless terrifying "sur prise" gas attack may be our lowly cold-blooded slug who can scarcely count one human friend in the world. But then, slugs are not social-minded beast. Besides being a warm friend in warfare the slug stands guard over many lives in peacetime in tunnels, coal mines, and sub marines, giving warning wher ever accumulating gases can be come harmful to man. Another Advantage In addition to being more "sensitive," our slug has anoth er decided advantage. Other "gas detectors" usually succumb after the first attack not through the gas itself but be cause it usually gives them pneumonia from which they die. Not so the slug. It curls up tightly, shuts off air-intake, and stops breathing until the lethal attack is over. Thus, without gas-mask, he lives to detect gas another day. Dr. Paul Bartsch of the Smith sonian Institution first enlisted the slug for gas detection. In experimenting with slugs in his home, he found that they could detect his wife's cooking at in credible distances. Following a hunch, the doctor released some slugs 70 feet away from a boiled potato and sure enough without an hour's hesitation, they single footed it for the potatoes oozing along on their slippery under side at something like 0.07 miles an hour. So come the next war, count upon our garden slug with the keen olfactory apparatus to be on the ready. (Copyright, 1957. by Eugene Burns) (Released by McClure Newspaper Syndicate To counter the surplus of cash which will appear in consumer pockets with few goods to buy, Chia warned that wages would be frozen or, as he put it, "con trolled in a well-planned man ner." ' Stocks of cotton cloth will be more strictly rationed to pre vent a shortage next winter. Coal and firewood ' must be used sparingly. Farmers have been urged to use natural fer tilizer to conserve chemical fertilizer. To increase production, stu dents who are not headed for higher educational institutions are being put to work in factor ies and farms. But at the same time tens of thousands of farm ers irritate'd by shortages in the rural areas are flooding into the cities. Reports from the mainland say the farmers are being driv en back at gunpoint if neces sary. Heavy drought crippled farm output in many areas last year and now floods have come along to plague Peiping's planners. Heavy rains in central China, especially in the Yangtse valley, threaten to wipe out the winter what crop. Much as they may blame na tural calamities, the Commu ters. They say low-level officials have failed to .apply Commu nism "properly." ; To counter this, Peiping has ordered a nationwide "rectifica tion" program so Red cadres are better equipped to explain mat- nists admit there are other fac-ters to the man-in-the-street. 1 Free: By special arrangement with the editors of the Encyclo pedia Ameicana, my panel of judges will award each week to the reader who sends me the best true-lifp noture adventure, the best nature observation, or the best question on nature and j wildlife, a complete 30-volume j set of this world-famous refer ence work in a handsome Seal craft binding. Each week new submissions will be considered Sorry, I simply can't answer your many friendly letters. Please address your letter to: Is That So! co Medford Mail Tribune, Box 575, Sausalito, Calif. 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