b. The Construction of Houses
The houses to be built in China will comprise public buildings and private residences. As the public buildings are to be built with public funds for public uses which will not be a profitable undertaking, a special Government Department should therefore be created to take charge. The houses that are to be built under this International Development Scheme will be private residences only with the object to provide cheap houses for the people, as well as to make profit for this International concern. The houses will be built on standardized types. In cities and towns the houses should be constructed on two lines: the single family and the group family houses. The former should again be sub-divided into eight-roomed, ten-roomed and twelve-roomed houses, and the latter into ten-family, hundred-family and thousand-family houses, with four or six rooms for each family. In the country districts the houses should be classified according to the occupation of the people, and special annexes such as barns and dairies should be provided for the farmers. All houses should be designed and built according to the needs and comfort of man; so a special architectural department should be established to study the habits, occupations and needs of different people and make improvements from time to time. The construction should be performed as much as possible by labor-saving machinery so as to accelerate work and save expenses.
c. The Manufacturing of Furniture
As all houses in China should be remodelled all furniture should be replaced by up-to-date ones, which are made for the comforts and needs of man. Furniture of the following kinds should be manufactured: the library, the parlor, the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom and the toilet. Each kind should be manufactured in a special factory under the management of the International Development Organization.
d. The Supply of Household Utilities
The household utilities are water, light, heat, fuel and telephones. Except in treaty ports, there is no water-supply system in any of the cities and towns of China. Even many treaty ports possess none as yet. In all the large cities, the people obtain their water from rivers which at the same time act as sewage. The water supply of the large cities and towns in China is most unsanitary, (1) It is an urgent necessity that water supply systems should be installed in all cities and towns in China without delay. Therefore special factories for equipping the water system should be established in order to meet the needs. (2) Lighting plants should be installed in all the cities and towns in China. So factories for the manufacture of the machinery lighting plants should be established. (3) Modern heating plants should be installed in every household, using either electricity, gas, or steam. So the manufacturing of heating equipment is a necessity. Factories should be established for this purpose. (4) Cooking fuel is one of the most costly items in the daily needs of the Chinese people. In the country the people generally devote ten per pent of their working time to gathering firewoods. In town the people spend about twenty per cent of their living expenses for firewood alone. Thus this firewood question accumulates into a great national waste. The firewood and grass as a cooking fuel must be substituted by coal in the country districts, and by gas or electricity in towns and cities. In order to use coal gas and electricity, proper equipment must be provided. So factories for the manufacturing of coal gas, and electricity, stoves for every family must be established by this International Development Organization. (5) Telephones must also be supplied to every family in the cities as well as in the country. So factories for manufacturing the equipment must be put up in China, in order to render them as cheap as possible.
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.