Family Broken

The professor said that in order to establish the Communist government, the family had to be broken up. Children were sent to schools and universities far away from home, and no two members of the same family were permitted to work in the same trade. "However, the family still prevailed."

But hadn't this system brought economic progress? "In measuring Chinese economic progress one should ask oneself if these people are better off today than they were fifty years ago," he said. Speaking from his own experience, he felt that this was not so.

"Fifty years ago," he said, "the Chinese farmer paid a high rent for a small farm, and was poor. But he did have his personal freedom and access to his family. As long as he paid his tribute to the Emperor in Peking, there was no interference at all."

Today, under the Commune system, the men live in one set of barracks, the women in another. A man sees his wife for thirty minutes once a fortnight, and his children are in a State institution.

"He possesses nothing," said Dr Goddard, "not even the clothes on' his back. There was a time when he possessed the graves of his ancestors, but a State decree compelled him to send all their bones to the fertilizer plants."