King Hwuy of Leang said, “Small as my virtue is, in the government of my kingdom, I do indeed exert my mind to the utmost.  If the year be bad inside the Ho, I remove as many of the people as I can to the east of it, and convey grain to the country inside.  If the year be bad on the east of the river, I act on the same plan.  On examining the governmental methods of the neighboring kingdoms, I do not find there is any ruler who exerts his mind as I do.  And yet the people of the neighboring kings do not decrease, nor do my people increase—­how is this?”

Mencius replied, “Your Majesty loves war; allow me to take an illustration from war.  The soldiers move forward at the sound of the drum; and when the edges of their weapons have been crossed, on one side, they throw away their buff coats, trail their weapons behind them, and run.  Some run a hundred paces and then stop; some run fifty paces and stop.  What would you think if these, because they had run but fifty paces, should laugh at those who ran a hundred paces?” The king said, “They cannot do so.  They only did not run a hundred paces; but they also ran.”  Mencius said, “Since your Majesty knows this you have no ground to expect that your people will become more numerous than those of the neighboring kingdoms.

“If the seasons of husbandry be not interfered with, the grain will be more than can be eaten.  If close nets are not allowed to enter the pools and ponds, the fish and turtles will be more than can be consumed.  If the axes and bills enter the hill-forests only at the proper times, the wood will be more than can be used.  When the grain and fish and turtles are more than can be eaten, and there is more wood than can be used, this enables the people to nourish their living and do all offices for their dead, without any feeling against any.  But this condition, in which the people nourish their living, and do all offices to their dead without having any feeling against any, is the first step in the Royal way.

“Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five acres, and persons of fifty years will be able to wear silk.  In keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their time of breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years will be able to eat flesh.  Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of the field allotment of a hundred acres, and the family of several mouths will not suffer from hunger.  Let careful attention be paid to the teaching in the various schools, with repeated inculcation of the filial and fraternal duties, and gray-haired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads.  It has never been that the ruler of a State where these results were seen, persons of seventy wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold, did not attain to the Royal dignity.