PART IV

The Motoring Industry

The Chinese are a stagnant race. From time immemorial a man is praised for staying at home and caring for his immediate surroundings only. Laotse--a contemporary of Confucius--says: "The good people are those who live in countries so near to each other that they can hear each other's cock crow and dog bark and yet they never have had intercourse with each other during their lifetime." This is often quoted as the Golden Age of the Chinese people. But in modern civilization the condition is entirely changed. Moving about occupies a great part of a man's life time. It is the movement of man that makes civilization progress. China, in order to catch up with modern civilization, must move. And the movement of the individual forms an important part of the national activity. A man must move whenever and wherever he pleases with ease and rapidity. However, China, at present, lacks the means of facility for individual movement, for all the old great highways were ruined and have disappeared, and the automobile has not yet been introduced into the interior of the country. The motor car, a recent invention, is a necessity for rapid movement. If we wish to move quickly and do more work, we must adopt the motor car as a vehicle. But before we can use the motor car, we have to build our roads. In the preliminary part of this International Development Scheme, I proposed to construct one million miles of roads. These should be apportioned according to the ratio of population in each district for construction. In the eighteen provinces of China Proper, there are nearly 2,000 hsiens. If all parts of China are to adopt the hsien administration, there will be nearly 4,000 hsiens in all. Thus the construction of roads for each hsien will be on an average of 250 miles. But some of the hsiens have more people and some have less. If we divide the million miles of roads by the four hundred million people, we shall have one mile to every four hundred. For four hundred people to build one mile of road is not a very difficult task to accomplish. If my scheme of making road-building as a condition for granting local autonomy is adopted by the nation, we shall see one million miles of road built in a very short time as if by a magic wand.

As soon as the people of China decide to build roads, this International Development Organization can begin to put up factories for manufacturing motor cars. First start on a small scale and gradually expand the plants to build more and more until they are sufficient to supply the needs of the four hundred million people. The cars should be manufactured to suit different purposes, such as the farmer's car, the artisan's car, the business man's car, the tourist's car, the truck car, etc. All these cars, if turned out on a large scale, can be made much cheaper than at present, so that everybody who wishes it, may have one.

Besides supplying cheap cars, we must also supply cheap fuel, otherwise the people will still be unable to use them. So the development of the oil fields in China should follow the motor car industry. This will be dealt with in more detail under the mining industry.