# Gems of Chinese Literature/Mêng Tzŭ-Half Measures

KING HUI of Liang said to Mencius, “I exhaust my energies in the administration of government. If the harvest is bad on one side of the river, I transfer a number of the inhabitants to the other, and send supplies to those who remain. No ruler among the neighbouring States devotes himself as I do to the welfare of his people. Yet their populations do not decrease; neither does mine increase. How is this?”
Mencius replied, “Your Majesty loves war. Let us take an illustration from war:―
“The drums beat: blades cross: arms are flung aside: the vanquished seek safety in flight. Some will run a hundred yards and then stop; others, fifty only. Can those who run fifty laugh at those who run a hundred?”
“No, indeed,” replied the king; “it was flight in both cases.”
“And so,” rejoined Mencius, “your Majesty, perceiving the application of what I have said, will not (under present conditions) expect your population to exceed the populations of neighbouring States.
“Let the times for agriculture be not neglected, and there will be more grain than can be eaten. Let no close-meshed nets sweep your streams, and there will be more fishes and turtles than can be eaten. Let forestry be carried on in due season, and there will be more wood than can be used. Thus, the people will be able ​to feed their living and bury their dead without repining; and this is the first step towards establishing a perfect system of government.
“Let the mulberry-tree be cultivated in accordance with regulation; then persons of fifty years old will be able to wear silk. Let due attention be paid to the breeding of poultry, and swine, and dogs; then persons of seventy years old will be able to eat meat. Let there be no interference with the labour of the husbandman; and there will be no mouths crying out for food. Let education of the people be reverently attended to;―above all, let them be taught their duties towards their parents and brethren;―and there will be no gray-headed burden-carriers to be seen along the highway. For, where septuagenarians wear silk and eat meat, where the black-haired people are neither hungry nor cold, it has never been that perfect government did not prevail.
“Your dogs and swine are battening on the food of men, and you do not limit them. By the roadside there are people dying of hunger, and you do not succour them. If they die, you say, ‘It was not I; it was the bad season.’ What is this but to stab a man to death, and say, ‘It was not I; it was the weapon?’ O king, blame not the season for these things, and all men under the canopy of heaven will flock to you.”
King Hui replied, “I beg to receive your instructions.”
Mencius continued, “Is there any difference between killing a man with a bludgeon and killing him with a sword!”
“There is none,” answered the king.
“Or between killing him with a sword and killing him by misrule?” pursued Mencius.
“There is none,” replied the king again.
“Yet in your kitchen,” said Mencius, “there is fat meat, and in your stables there are sleek horses, while famine sits upon the faces of your people, and men die of hunger in the fields. This is to be a beast, and prey upon your fellow-man.
“Beasts prey upon one another, in a manner abhorrent to us. If, then, he who holds the place of father and mother to the ​people, preys upon them like a beast, wherein does his prerogative consist?
“Confucius said, ‘Was he not without posterity who first buried images with the dead?’―meaning that these, being in the likeness of man, suggested the use of living men. What then of him who causes his people to die of hunger?”