Born on February 2, 1899 in Mie Prefecture, Prof. TOBATA, as the son of a landowning family, in his youth became attuned to the seasonal rhythm of farming. Whereas most young men of his circumstance aimed for high government position with its prerogatives, he chose to study and later teach agriculture at Tokyo University. Intent upon discovering how land use and crops had evolved elsewhere, he continued his education in Germany and the United States and returned to become a pioneer in agricultural economics. 

As his scholarship won adherents, TOBATA’s advice increasingly was sought by fellow academicians, technicians and government officials. In his advisory role he made important contributions to development of agricultural science and research and to charting Japanese agricultural policies. 

Alert to the injustices and technologically crippling effects of a feudal land tenure system that the Meiji Restoration had left almost untouched, TOBATA became a champion of land reform. Attempted without success after the close of World War I, reform was accomplished with support from the Allied Occupation after 1945. As the transformation awakened peasant initiative, TOBATA helped devise government action to promote basic democratic ideas through cooperatives, education and demonstration. The Japanese farmer’s wife, known formerly as the “hornless cow,” also became his concern as he worked for her liberation and acceptance as a full-fledged partner in family decision-making.

With the triumph of sound policies and technology that enabled Japan’s farmers to support accelerated industrialization, TOBATA turned his efforts to helping developing lands. Through the Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, he and his associates began assembling data on their own experience and on actual potentials and problems facing farmers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Sending abroad yearly more than 20 scholars to gather basic facts, the Institute is beginning systematically to provide information applicable in other lands. Now retired from teaching, TOBATA devotes himself to encouraging understanding of the fundamental role of a healthy agriculture in promoting national and regional progress. 

In electing SEIICHI TOBATA as the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his incisive contributions toward modernization of Japan’s agriculture and the sharing of its experience with developing nations.

(Dr. Tobata regrets that illness prevents him from being here today and has asked that this message be read):

I am deeply honored and pleased to have been chosen a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee.

Looking back upon my life, the first occasion when I was given an award was when I was a fourth grade pupil. At that time the head of the local government where I come from visited some 20 primary schools in the district and chose one excellent pupil from each school for an award. I still very well remember how proud my parents were when I danced home with my award. And the second award to bless me in my lifetime is a much greater one: the Ramon Magsaysay Award—an honor I never dreamed of receiving. Today my parents are no longer here to share this joy with me, although this time all my family, including my grandchildren, together with many of my friends are with me to share in this honor. Thank you very, very much for this great Award.

The citation covering this Award refers to “incisive contributions toward modernization of Japan’s agriculture and the sharing of its experience with developing nations.” Indeed I must ask myself whether I really deserve this praise and reflect critically upon what I have done in the past.

Since the time when I was around 50 years of age, I began to doubt my capability as a scholar at the university; I was increasingly realizing that this role had its own limits. I mused what I should do to make the best use of what little capability I had. I concluded that I could more usefully exert myself to assist promising young men and provide them with better and greater opportunities for research and study, rather than myself continuing as a student. So, since the end of the Pacific War, I have taken posts as the first Director of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry from 1946 to 1956, and then as the first Chairman of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Technology Research Council of the same Ministry from 1956 to 1963. After that I served from 1958 to 1967 as the first President of the Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, the first postwar research institute of this sort in Japan to specialize in research on problems of developing nations. While not everything went entirely as I had aspired, I am satisfied on the whole with what has been done to date — above all, a good many specialists have been developed in all of these organizations and, not of lesser significance, I could find men of greater competence than I on whom to pass my jobs. Yet, who can say that these are “incisive contributions”? I recall the geese from the Roman tale whose quacks awoke the sleepy Roman soldiers in the face of the enemy’s night attacks, thus unwittingly saving Rome from possible defeat. My “contributions” must in all probability be likewise indirect ones at the most. The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation was generous enough to honor an old Doctor Goose with this great Award! So, may I understand it to mean encouragement for me to raise louder quacks the rest of my life?

Modernization of Japan’s agriculture, the various efforts in this direction during some 20 postwar years notwithstanding, seems to me to leave much to be desired. Moreover, under influences of the fast growing non-agricultural sectors, Japanese agriculture today is in a very precarious condition. Yet we have had some advancement. In respect to rice cultivation, for one thing, prewar volume of rice production had barely exceeded 10 million tons; today, with cultivated area of paddy fields having increased only slightly, the volume of production in the normal crop year is well over 13 million tons and in 1967, in particular, it reached a record level of 14.45 million tons. And this in spite of the sharp decrease in the agricultural population and the trend toward greater proportions of old-aged and women in the farm labor force.

I may mention three major factors which have contributed toward this progress.

First, there have been increased application of science and technology to agriculture and greater dissemination among farmers of the latest agricultural know-how. Institutions for agricultural experimentation and research now are oriented more toward practical problems that farmers face. Also, more organizations are disseminating among farmers’ and particularly rural housewives — information and techniques for the improvement of farming and living conditions.

Second, the relations between agriculture and other industries have become closer. Industries producing chemical fertilizer, agricultural chemicals, farm machines and implements and processing food are now “growth industries” and their contributions toward increased agricultural productivity are considerable.

Third, while the initiative and leadership of the government agencies have remained as strong as before the war, noticeable postwar phenomena are a stronger confidence in the progress of farming as well as a greater will-to-work among owner-farmers, especially among young farmers.

So much for what I would like to say for today’s memorable occasion. I believe that some of the achievements thus far made in Japan may, with due corrections and modifications, prove applicable to agriculture, particularly to rice farming, in other Asian countries. Finally, let me say that I do always hope and pray, just as you all do, for further development of agriculture in this part of the world.

Events engulfing Vietnam over the past three decades have compounded the dilemma of concerned intellectuals seeking sources for their national inspiration. Traditionally schooled in Nho hoc, or Confucian learning, they were cut adrift from their origins by the system of education that accompanied French colonial rule. As this elite was oriented toward French, it lost touch with the peasantry and left them vulnerable to Communist persuasion. 

Minister TON THAT THIEN, by contrast, relentlessly has sought to digest the essence of Western scientific method and wed it to Vietnamese cultural values. Freedom of thought and expression he found were essential to this pursuit. His convictions led him to act with perceptive courage and staunch individualism as writer and editor, professor and government official. 

Born in Central Vietnam in 1924 THIEN from early youth was steeped in the history and classical teachings of his country. After World War II he earned a degree at the London School of Economics. Graduate work at the Institute of International Studies in Geneva was interrupted by a call to join the Vietnamese delegation at the 1954 conference that led to independence for his country. 

THIEN enlisted promptly in the new government in Saigon, serving as Press Secretary to the Premier. Differing later with the authoritarian conservatism of the Diem regime, he left to complete doctoral studies in Geneva. Unlike other disaffected idealists who found haven abroad, he returned in 1963 to serve as Director General of Viet Nam Press. Moving to private journalism as a political columnist on the Saigon Daily News, he went on to found with like-minded colleagues the Viet Nam Guardian, becoming its managing editor. 

When the Guardian was suppressed in December 1966 THIEN continued to write for the London Economist, The Far Eastern Economic Review and Forum World Features, among others. He also taught and in 1967 became Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Van Hanh University, where he helped organize the study group that is probing Vietnam’s past for guides to the present. 

With the appointment of Tran Van Huong as Premier in April 1968 signaling more popularly responsive government, THIEN accepted the post of Minister of Information. His first act upon assuming office was to lift press censorship, explaining: “Why have 25,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Vietnamese died in this war, if not for freedom?” 

In electing TON THAT THIEN, editor and now Minister of Information of the Republic of Vietnam, to receive the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his enduring commitment to free inquiry and debate.

I deeply appreciate the very great honor you have done me by associating me with the name of one of the greatest sons, not only of the Philippines, but also of Asia. Ramon Magsaysay is an Asian, and a nation builder no less great than such men as Meiji of Japan, Mongkut of Siam, Sun Yat-sen of China, Gandhi of India, and Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh of Vietnam. He belongs to that breed of men of whom every Asian feels immensely proud.

“It has been my great fortune to have met the late President Magsaysay in December 1956 and to have watched him working for the freedom and the uplifting of his people. I was received by him in his office at Malacanang, and I could see that this office was crowded with people from the barrios seeking redress. I realized that they would not have come there if they did not trust him and if he had not seen to it that they could reach him freely. That was an image which has remained deeply imprinted in my mind. Thus, President Magsaysay has been a source of inspiration to me. As a social scientist and one committed to social reforms in Vietnam, I have learned much from the work done by President Magsaysay for his people, and especially from his motivations and his style. One could not watch him go about his work, even when one did so from afar, without being struck by his lack of concern for what other people might say about him or do to him. He was only concerned about the freedom of his people, and he realized that there could be no real freedom for the Philippines unless every Filipino, especially those from the barrios, could freely make his voice heard, either in seeking redress, or in contributing suggestions for the improvement of the government of the country. President Magsaysay understood that there could be no real freedom for his people unless they were given the opportunity of acquiring knowledge through education and free access to information. Being one of those in Vietnam who share President Magsaysay’s ideals, philosophy, and determination to work for the social transformation of my people”

“I confess that I was highly pleased on being told that I had won an award associated with Magsaysay’s name, and especially with what he stood for. I am only one of many, among whom is my friend and editor of the Viet Nam Guardian, Nguyen Van Tuoi, who have been encouraged to persist in this undertaking not only by the memory of President Magsaysay, but also by the example of a man who, to me, is a living image of President Magsaysay in Vietnam. That man is our present Prime Minister, Tran Van Huong, whose origin, life, ideals and determination that Vietnam shall not fall under communism, are so similar to those of the great man from Zambales”.

Mr. Tran Van Huong was born into a very poor family; in fact he was the son of a kitchen hand. But he has risen to his present position by sheer force of will and an unshakable determination to acquire a good education. Like President Magsaysay, he is motivated by a deep love for his country and people and fully realizing that the quality of a nation is the sum of the qualities of its citizens, he is determined to see to it that all Vietnamese are given the opportunity to acquire freedom and knowledge in order to uplift their country.

Without Mr. Huong, I would not have the chance of turning into reality a long-cherished dream: that of contributing actively and effectively to the enlargement of freedom in Vietnam and in Asia, and of adding my share to the fight for freedom being waged everywhere in the world. Today, freedom, like prosperity and happiness, is indivisible. The Magsaysay Award Foundation should remind us all of that truth.

Giving relief is difficult especially when the goal is to generate positive human response. The recipient readily comes to feel obligated, dependent and ill at ease about the relationship. The challenge to the donor is to fortify rather than inhibit self-reliance. Working wherever possible through local agencies in eight countries and two colonies in Asia, the COOPERATIVE FOR AMERICAN RELIEF EVERYWHERE, known as CARE, has managed this delicate assignment with sensitivity and a continuing concern for long-term results. 

Inaugurated in November 1945 as a cooperative of American private charitable and service organizations to send food parcels to the starving in war-ravaged Europe, CARE soon broadened its scope, changing the “E” to Everywhere. Discovering that an equal need was for the means to self-help, CARE aid began emphasizing plows, technical books and much else that man needs for his productive efforts. As food commodities became available from the U.S. Government, which also paid for most of the freight, CARE took responsibility for a vast international feeding program. In March 1962 MEDICO became a service of CARE, adding a new dimension to the assault on hunger, poverty and disease. 

Filipino children numbering yearly some four million in 27,000 elementary and pre-schools benefit from the free lunch program of CARE and the Bureau of Public Schools. Blending powdered milk and cornmeal, teachers are distributing a nutritious supplement to guard the younger generation against the intellectually numbing hazards that scientists have uncovered in a protein deficient diet. Sprayers for fruit and tobacco growers, 3,000 transistor radios distributed to barrios, woodworking tools for vocational schools, and vita-pops (vitamin fortified buns) for orphans in institutions are but a few of CARE’s contributions. In South Vietnam, war refugees are given soap, vitamins, textile packages and sewing kits by CARE and are helped to become self-supporting with seeds, irrigation equipment, livestock, and tools for carpenters, masons and blacksmiths. When famine threatened millions in India two years ago, CARE was among the agencies that helped with effective emergency food aid. 

Now representing 26 American agencies CARE, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1967, distributed in 32 countries US$99,194,128 worth of food, supplies and equipment. From its founding to date its contributions have exceeded one billion dollars in value. Costs of administering this service have been kept to approximately seven per cent. Accomplishing this immense task with a modest budget and insuring integrity in use sets a standard for constructive relief. It also is heartening reassurance for the many in Asia who benefit to know that others care. 

In electing the COOPERATIVE FOR AMERICAN RELIEF EVERYWHERE to receive the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes its constructive humanitarianism, fostering dignity among the needy in Asia and on three other continents for over 22 years.

I bring greetings from CARE’s Chairman, Mr. Ben Touster, and his sincere regrets that he is unable to be here today to accept this great honor on behalf of the organization he has served and loved for more than 20 years. 

We accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding in the name of the American people whose generous support has made it possible for CARE to be effective. 

Challenge abounds in the world today. I speak particularly of the challenge of disease and the challenge of poverty that degrade millions of our fellow members in the family of man. 

Of the 200 human beings that are born every minute, about half will be dead before they are a year old. Of those who survive, half will be dead before they reach 16 years of age. Many of the remainder will have a life expectancy of about 30 years. During this brief and wretched existence, they will be sick and hungry most of the time. Most of them will never learn to read and write. 

The challenge is clear — the opportunity is clear. Are we to say to them that modern man can do nothing to help them change their lot? If we do, we shame both them and ourselves. It does not have to be — and it will not be. 

Accompanying the Ramon Magsaysay Award is a wonderful grant of $10,000.00. Because the situation brought about by the civil war in Nigeria today represents the most urgent call upon relief organizations like CARE, the decision has been made to donate this grant toward the relief and rehabilitation of the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of that conflict. 

We are often asked what CARE will do in the future — in which countries it will operate. These questions can only be answered by the need. We will help where required and requested, and within the budget provided by the individual donations of the American people. Perhaps no better answer can be given to CARE’s purpose than to quote the words of the late U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy who said: 

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

The Ramon Magsaysay Award is without question the single most important honor that has come to CARE. We are proud and grateful for having been chosen to receive it. To the Foundation we, in turn, pledge that we will rededicate our efforts to the future service of men.

Progress in any rural community begins with the people themselves mastering the art of saving their modest funds and using them productively. This is true in Asia today as it was in Germany 104 years ago when, after failing to generate results with charity, Frederick Wilhelm Raiffeisen founded the first credit union among the depressed and starving of Heddesdorf. Like the 28 English pioneers who started the Rochdale consumers union, these cooperatives appealed to elemental human nature: linking self-interest to community betterment. As cooperatives have grown, so has economic democracy. 

Despite this promise the Philippines, like many Asian lands, is littered with the wrecks of mismanaged cooperatives that spawned popular disillusionment. It was against this handicap that Angel Mandac of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement labored when he first came to Barrio Bantug in 1960 to arouse interest in a credit union. SILVINO ENCARNACION, a tailor by trade who then was Barrio Lieutenant, and his wife, ROSARIO, a public elementary school teacher, accepted the challenge, gradually enlisting responsive neighbors. 

Starting in May 1960 with 17 members and 73 pesos in cash deposits, the Bantug Community Cooperative Credit Union now has 181 members and P26,447.52 in assets. Neither the largest nor the wealthiest among credit unions in the Philippines, it is distinguished by its integrity and creativity. Most consequential are the changes members are prompting in their barrio of some 4,000 inhabitants. From chronic habits of dependence and borrowing from moneylenders to pay for illness, baptisms, rice until the next harvest and even gambling debts, Bantug is progressing as residents learn to save and plan ahead. With capital from their own “bank,” members of the credit union finance small businesses, improve their houses, pay tuition for children attending college and invest in better seeds and fertilizer. All of this was made possible by careful management of cooperative funds and emphasis upon productive loans based on the borrower’s character. 

SILVINO and ROSARIO ENCARNACION are proving that regardless of how modest an individual’s circumstance and discouraging the condition of his community, these can be altered. With associates in the Bantug credit union they are showing that barrio folk can be encouraged to learn new habits releasing them from old limitations to build the decent life all seek. 

In electing SILVINO and ROSARIO ENCARNACION, treasurer-manager and chairman of the credit committee, respectively, of Barrio Bantug Community Cooperative Credit Union, Munoz, Nueva Ecija, to receive the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes their wise management of a credit cooperative that soundly improves life in their low-income barrio, without incurring bad debts.

We, Filipinos, have a saying that he who fails to look back where he came from cannot reach his destination. So, to reach this destination, we shall look back and give our endless thanks, first to our late Ramon Magsaysay who left us beautiful and undying ideals; second, to the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and Mr. Angel Mandac, who patiently taught us careful bookkeeping; third, to our townmates who gave us complete faith and entrusted to us their savings; and above all, to God who enlightened our minds that we may perform our given task without blemish. 

Because of these ideals we have received an honor which, even in our dreams, we did not think we would be worthy of. So permit me to relate an incident in my life. 

In October of 1963 I became seriously ill and everybody thought I would not live. But nothing is impossible if so willed by God; that is why I am here before you, hale and hearty. When I recovered, I asked myself the following questions: 

1. Why did I survive that serious illness? 

2. What is God’s plan for my life? 

3. Do I have a duty I have not yet accomplished? 

My long period of waiting found its answer tonight. It is none other than the Award which my husband and I have received. This Award has a small voice which whispers that we have a duty and a responsibility to our country and that we should live to serve our fellowmen. 

May I convey to the four corners of our country at this moment that we shall serve not only in Barrio Bantug, Munoz, Nueva Ecija, but in the whole Philippines wherever the need may arise in keeping with the ideals of our late President Ramon Magsaysay. With the PRRM, our townmates and all who uphold the high principles of our beloved Ramon Magsaysay, we want to share the honor we received.

Progress in any rural community begins with the people themselves mastering the art of saving their modest funds and using them productively. This is true in Asia today as it was in Germany 104 years ago when, after failing to generate results with charity, Frederick Wilhelm Raiffeisen founded the first credit union among the depressed and starving of Heddesdorf. Like the 28 English pioneers who started the Rochdale consumers union, these cooperatives appealed to elemental human nature: linking self-interest to community betterment. As cooperatives have grown, so has economic democracy. 

Despite this promise the Philippines, like many Asian lands, is littered with the wrecks of mismanaged cooperatives that spawned popular disillusionment. It was against this handicap that Angel Mandac of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement labored when he first came to Barrio Bantug in 1960 to arouse interest in a credit union. SILVINO ENCARNACION, a tailor by trade who then was Barrio Lieutenant, and his wife, ROSARIO, a public elementary school teacher, accepted the challenge, gradually enlisting responsive neighbors. 

Starting in May 1960 with 17 members and 73 pesos in cash deposits, the Bantug Community Cooperative Credit Union now has 181 members and P26,447.52 in assets. Neither the largest nor the wealthiest among credit unions in the Philippines, it is distinguished by its integrity and creativity. Most consequential are the changes members are prompting in their barrio of some 4,000 inhabitants. From chronic habits of dependence and borrowing from moneylenders to pay for illness, baptisms, rice until the next harvest and even gambling debts, Bantug is progressing as residents learn to save and plan ahead. With capital from their own “bank,” members of the credit union finance small businesses, improve their houses, pay tuition for children attending college and invest in better seeds and fertilizer. All of this was made possible by careful management of cooperative funds and emphasis upon productive loans based on the borrower’s character. 

SILVINO and ROSARIO ENCARNACION are proving that regardless of how modest an individual’s circumstance and discouraging the condition of his community, these can be altered. With associates in the Bantug credit union they are showing that barrio folk can be encouraged to learn new habits releasing them from old limitations to build the decent life all seek. 

In electing SILVINO and ROSARIO ENCARNACION, treasurer-manager and chairman of the credit committee, respectively, of Barrio Bantug Community Cooperative Credit Union, Munoz, Nueva Ecija, to receive the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes their wise management of a credit cooperative that soundly improves life in their low-income barrio, without incurring bad debts.

At this hour, I cannot find the words to describe the happiness that fills my heart. God willed that I be with all of you at this commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the late great father of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay. 

Not even in my dreams did I expect that I would one day be accorded an honor and a prize such as this. We, in the barrios, extend help to our townmates with no hope for a reward. I now realize that even a poor man who does something good has a chance to be given recognition and a prize. 

I give my heartfelt thanks to the family of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, to my townmates, to my fellow countrymen, and to all those who helped us reach the summit of honor and success. 

I pray to God that I may make useful everyday the life and strength He gave me, in our town, our province and our country, so I may be worthy, and so I may peacefully retire to the home meant for me by the Supreme Maker.

The career of a concerned civil servant never is easy. Yet, despite the internal and external pressures that have ravaged China during his 58 years, Ll KWOH-TING has sustained through adulthood his commitment to help his people through effective government service. Schooled in his native Nanking and in England, LI returned to China in 1937 to teach physics. Within four years he was drafted to spur defense production in the remote interior where the Chinese maintained their resistance against the Japanese. 

A gifted planner of China’s postwar industrial rehabilitation, LI transferred his efforts to Taiwan as Communist armies seized the mainland. From organizing shipbuilding he rose to help plan the island’s industrialization. In 1958 he became responsible for coordinating U.S. economic assistance which LI and his colleagues used so efficiently that by 1965 aid no longer was needed. Through successive posts LI overcame internal resistance to chart sound policies attracting private domestic and foreign capital and management and international loans to create an ever-expanding economy based on balanced encouragement of both agriculture and industry. 

Spurred by government actions largely designed or actively supported by LI, Taiwan’s foreign trade grew from US$420 million in 1960 to US$1,173 million in 1966. The island became the world’s leading exporter of canned mushrooms. Processing of other agricultural commodities has continually expanded. Increasing sales abroad of electronic components, chemicals, plastics and metal manufactures and appliances bespeak a growing sophistication of industry. Over the past 10 years, the annual rate of industrial growth has averaged 13.8 percent. 

Widely acknowledged as a model for agricultural modernization—complete with effective land reform—and of diversified industrialization, Taiwan is now helping other developing countries. Nearly 4,000 foreign technicians have come to learn on farms and in factories. More than 30 teams of Chinese specialists now are working in some 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, sharing their experience. 

As a chief architect and promoter of the industrial miracle that has emerged following the growth in Taiwan’s rural productivity and buying power, K. T. Ll has channeled national resources where they were most needed. With the cooperation of his peers he has shown that what counts more than material resources and funds for national development is enlightened and discriminating use of human skill and determination. 

In electing LI KWOH-TING, Minister of Economic Affairs of the Republic of China, to receive the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his vigorous, rational guidance of Taiwan’s economy, generating one of the world’s most rapid rates of industrial growth.

I am highly honored to have been nominated the recipient of the 1968 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service. In accepting this award and the honor that goes with it, I consider myself no more than a representative of all of my fellow countrymen, both in and outside of the government, who have contributed toward the postwar industrial development on Taiwan, the island province of the Republic of China. To me, the Board of Trustees’ decision is more of a recognition of the swift and orderly transformation of my country’s economy than a reflection of my own part in it. The industrialization of any developing country is such a complicated and complex process that success can be achieved only through well-coordinated efforts on the part of government officials, farmers, workers, businessmen and professionals. 

It is perhaps no coincidence that another of my fellow countrymen, the late Dr. Chiang Mon-lin, received the first Government Service Award from this Foundation 10 years ago for his inspiring leadership in establishing a sound rural economy and improving life in the countryside of Taiwan. Indeed, rural prosperity has been one of the most important prior conditions for our economic growth in the early stage. Even though the emphasis has gradually been shifted to industrial development in more recent years—and Taiwan’s industry is undergoing a process of sophistication which is extremely heartening to all of us who have been involved in it—our policy has remained one of maintaining a balanced growth between agriculture and industry. As the Board of Trustees rightly pointed out, this has been the basis of our expanding economy.

 Ladies and gentlemen, the part of the world we are living in is still largely a developing area. People are impatient for a more rapid growth of their national economies so that their hopes and aspirations for a better life can be fulfilled at an early date. This has tended to expand the traditional role of government. It is no longer enough for a government simply to collect taxes, maintain law and order, or provide basic services. Active government participation in development activities — such as planning for more effective allocation of resources—has become increasingly necessary. And this has, in turn, pointed to the increased need for government workers of competence and dedication. 

The inclusion of government service as a field of endeavor from which persons are selected for the Ramon Magsaysay Award testifies to the importance the farsighted founders of the Foundation have attached to it and, I feel, it is a source of great encouragement to those Asians already engaged or about to join in government service to make their contributions to the cause of more rapid economic development and growth. Personally I know of no other international award that is offered specifically to encourage better performance in government service.

Finally, speaking of encouragement and inspiration, there is nothing that can compare with the very story of the man himself, whom this Award has been established to honor. Ramon Magsaysay rose from very humble beginnings to legendary height in both stature and in fame. His example as a great patriot and outstanding leader of our epoch is truly “a source of strength and confidence to men everywhere who are sincerely concerned about the well-being of their fellowmen.”