"It is easier to make a Communist out of a New Zealand than a Chinese farmer!" This statement was made to Salient by Dr W. G. Goddard, who was for twenty years a professor of Chinese history.

"The New Zealand farm is run purely as a profit making Institution," he said. But the Chinese I farmer was bound to his farm, not only by his living, but by the LiChi philosophy. One of its chief points is that man comes from the soil and returns to it. As the family graves are all on the farm, to a Chinese his farm is closely bound up with his family and his religion.

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."

Pure Communist

"it is because of this Commune system that Mao-Tse-Tung has labelled himself the only pure Communist," said the professor. Mao says that Marx and Krushchev are not pure, because they permit the family system, and some private property.

He spoke of the food problem in China. "Eighty per cent, of all agricultural produce is commandeered by the State, but it is not used to feed the people."

Mainland China had no foreign exchange, and thus had to use her produce for trade, and to pay foreign debts. "Two-thirds of the wheat, and three-quarters of the barley given by Australia, went to Russia and Albania for this purpose." At the same time, twenty million people in one province alone starved.

However, Professor Goddard felt that the greatness of countries could not be measured in terms of economics. "Communism is not a political or economic creed. It relates to the mind and the human spirit." A basic civilised demand 'was the freedom to think and express one's thoughts, he said.

These freedoms did not exist in China, but neither did the freedom of silence, and this was taken for assent. "So you haven't even got the freedom of keeping your mouth shut," he commented.

Professor Goddard feels that Mao's plan of building a new nation could be thwarted if the non Communists would put all the money they spend on armaments into producing cheap propaganda. Radio stations and public houses in Asia, he feels, could do this most effectively.