Beautiful sunny day. Wrote a memo to T. V. 【宋子文] on developing woolen industry, getting machinery from Japan as reparations and wool from Australia. Another memo, on trucks from the army for transporting refugees back. Wrote a letter to Kizer about R. & R. fund; another about ships. Ma 【馬傑] of Honan came to talk about work; told him to go ahead as soon as possible. Settled with C. M. 【李卓敏] the financial plan to the end of February, 1946.
Yung Li Chemical Works 【永利化工] agents came to talk about the contract to sell artificial fertilizer for CNRRA 【行政院善後救濟總署]. Company is much worried about the price, for American fertilizers can be marketed in China at CN$75,000 a ton, whereas China today cannot produce at less than CN$350,000. The company could produce about 50,000 tons a year. Told them that if the disparity in prices was so high, foreign companies could beat them to pieces. They found no way out of their difficulties.
In a casual talk with 楊綿仲, he gave me the idea of making prefabricated wooden houses in Western Hunan, to be floated down to Changsha and Hengyang. We can have different stages of prefabrication.