RED CHINA: Overdoing It

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Having organized its humans into herds, Chinese Communist leaders last week turned their attention to the nation's livestock. Statisticians discovered that of 27 million "eligible female animals" in China, 12 million have never conceived. The party issued a directive calling for "100% bovine pregnancy."

If Peking's planners are able to meet this ambitious target in 1959, it will take its place among the new miracles of People's China — alongside the 330-lb. sweet potato and a marvelous plant that allegedly grows tomatoes above ground and potatoes below. But of all the wonders boasted by Red China, none can beat the economic snafu created by Peking's planners in the past year.

Currently China's people are being exhorted by song ("Manure Sources Are Plentiful") and slogan ("Make manure by soaking and smoking") to accumulate 10 billion tons of fertilizer. But so many Chinese are tied up on other "shock programs" that despite China's 600 million-man labor force there is a shortage of manure collectors; to find hands for the task, Hopei province has been obliged to abandon eight out of twelve high-priority irrigation projects planned for this year.

In industrial management, too, Red China's rulers have underdone by overdoing. In 1958 Peking boasted that the nation's steel production had jumped 100% to a whopping (for Asia) 11 million tons. But late last month came a laconic announcement that construction of all new railway lines planned for 1959 would have to be postponed. The reason: a shortage of steel rails.