968
AMOY
International settlement on the 1st May, 1903. In the opinion of the Commissioner of Customs, Kulangsu bids fair to become one of the most charming little republics on the coast of China. The value of land on the island of Kulangsu has enhanced 100 per cent. compared with the prices ruling a decade ago. Hotel accommodation is satisfactory, and an electric lighting plant was installed in 1913. There is a good club in the settlement, adjoining which is the cricket ground. A golf club has been formed and a course laid out on the Racecourse. The course is a sporting one, abounding in natural hazards, and is well patronised. A neat little Anglican Church has also been erected. A Japanese Settlement was marked out in 1899 and a fair number of Japanese, officials and others, reside there. There is a slipway at Amoy, owned and managed by foreigners. The Standard Oil Co. of New York have erected oil tanks at Sing-Su on the mainland, and close to the site of the new station of the Amoy-Changchow railway kerosene oil tanks, capable of turning out 4,000 tins a day, the property of the Asiatic Petroleum Company, have also been erected. The foreign residents number about 280. At the end of October, 1908, the Chinese Government welcomed part of the American battleship fleet at Amoy, the officers and men being entertained on a lavish scale.
Frequent and regular steamer communication is maintained with Hongkong, Swatow, Foochow and Formosa, and steamers occasionally run directly to the Straits Settlements and Manila. There has always been a comparatively good trade done at Amoy, and notwithstanding that the tea trade, for which it was long famous, has now practically disappeared, it is significant that the shipping tonnage employed by the port has quintupled since the decade 1864-73, and almost trebled since the decade 1874- 83. In 1915 for the first time for many years the tonnage figures failed to reach the million mark In former times, ere the glory of Amoy had departed, the staple export was Tea-the local product as well as the superior blends brought over from Formosa- but, largely owing to the deterioration of the local product, and the indifference of the grower to the changing conditions of the foreign market, locally-grown tea has long since ceased to be exported, and the Customs Commissioner made a fairly safe prophecy that it only required the development of Keelung harbour to cause the total disappearance of the foreign tea merchant from Amoy. Before the Japanese obtained possession of Formosa the Formosan teas were "settled" and warehoused in Amov, whence they were shipped to the foreign markets. Now no Formosan tea is "settled in Amoy, and with Keelung still unimproved to any considerable extent, quite 50 per- cent. of the Formosan product is being shipped direct to America from Keelung. The foreign tea merchant at Amoy has practically lost his occupation, and we are witnessing the fulfilment of the prediction that "the row of quaint, rambling, old hongs on the Amoy side, and many picturesque residences on Kulangsu will be offering for the occupation of the wealthy returned enigrant or the missionary school." The net value of the trade of the port coming under the cognisance of the Foreign Customs in 1915 was Hk. Tls. 20,217,220, as compared with Hk. Tls. 18,571,525 in 1914, Hk. Tls. 20,068,932 in 1913, Hk. Tls. 20,882,834 in 1912, and Hk. Tls. 20,413,339 in 1911.
局總報電國法大
Ta Fa-ko-tien-pao-tsung-kok
DIRECTORY
ADMINISTRATION FRANÇAISE DES POSTES
ET DES TELEGRAPHES
Receveur Principal-P. J. Verdeille
AMOY CHINESE HOSPITAL
D. H. Ainslie (absent)
J. W. Hartley
H. M. Cory
AMOY CLUB
Committee--Dr. J. W. Hartley (chair-
man)
Finance Hartley and Leyte
Games-Kring and Sibley
Property-Hartley and Leyte
Bar-Mayers and Sibley Library-Mayers and Kring Secretary-P. H. McIntyre