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Page 5 - Foreign - Neville

go from Chungking to Shanghai and never run into a Japanese soldier. Let the Japanese evacuate a city one day and the next a complete Chinese municipal government, with mayor, magistrate and police force, will move in.

Throughout the vast interior railroads, highways, bus systems, ferries and river boats are kept open and running. Established trade routes run right down to the coast. Let the Japanese cut one route and overnight the Chinese, expert at transportation, will improvise another road. Going from the coast to the interior it would seem that half the population is engaged in some form of transportation. Endless lines of coolies are carrying heavy cans of gasoline, spare machine parts, even truck parts which will be assembled farther up. Some goods are carried by hand part of the way, at other places four or five will join and push and pull on crudely made carts loaded with merchandise. As they push uphill they sing a chant which I can only remember as sounding like "Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho." The human being is China's beast of burden, and perhaps for the first time in history the services of a coolie are at a premium.