Directory_and_Chronicle_1921

SWATOW

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attempts were made to pass through its gates. In 1866 a visit was made under more favourable circumstances, but it is only within recent years that the population has refrained from annoyance and insult to foreigners within its walls. In 1862 the lease of a piece of land was applied for and granted to the British Government on the north bank of the river about a mile from Swatow, but so strong were the demonstra- tions of the populace against it that the matter fell through. Foreign residences, however, commenced to spring up here and there, and many of them are consequently somewhat scattered, though the majority are in or near the town of Swatow. The yearly increasing traffic of the port led to much overcrowding on the narrow strip of land on which it is built, and since February, 1877, no less than 21 acres have been reclaimed from the sea, the greater part of which is now covered with shops and houses. A Bund Construction Bureau has been established, with the consent of the high provincial authorities at Canton, for the avowed purpose of building a bund 80 feet in width from the Native Custom House on the west to the old fort on the east, the normal line determined by the Customs Marine Department's Surveyor in 1917 being taken as the outer limit. The funds required to meet the cost of construction will be derived from the sale of unreclaimed foreshore lots contained within the bund and of property to which no valid title is held; also from the taxation of land unreclaimed at the time of the bureau's establishment. The bureau, moreover, reserves the right to construct an electric tramway on the bund and to erect wharves. Up to the present its chief activities have been confined to a survey of the locality and to the sale of foreshore lots.

The climate of Swatow is reputed to be very salubrious. The town occupies, however, an unenviable position as regards typhoons, on account of being opposite the lower mouth of the Formosa Channel, and it has on many occasions been subjected to all the violence of these terrible storms, which almost every year sweep across the lower coast of China. The population of Swatow is estimated at 7,060 families, representing from 50,000 to 60,000 inliabitants.

A Chinese syndicate with a capital of three million dollars obtained the necessary sanction for the construction of a railway from Swatow to Ch'ao-chou-fu, and work was commenced on the line in 1904. The line, which is 28 miles in length, was opened to traffic on November 25th, 1906. The contractors were Japanese, who supplied all material, the rails and engines coming from America and the carriages from Japan. The construction of the line has brought about a great inflation of land values.

Swatow has now an electric light plant of its own, and on account of the cheap price at which the current is supplied this method of lighting is finding favour with the Chinese, and, to some extent, replacing the use of kerosene lamps. A new waterworks was completed early in 1914, the reservoir being at Kia-kun, about eight miles inland. In the middle of 1919 a telephone service was introduced.

The foreign trade of Swatow has never been large. Tea and sugar were formerly the principal exports, but the tea trade here, as in other China ports, has to a very large extent passed away. Increased attention is being given to the cultivation of vegetables, fruit, indigo and tobacco leaf. It is thought probable that in the near future minerals will assume increased importance in the export trade of this port, as prospecting discloses more of the latent wealth of the district. The net value of the trade of the port coming under the cognisance of the Foreign Customs for 1919 was Hk. Tls. 58,440,581 as compared with Hk. Tls. 50,182,937 in 1918, Hk. Tls. 51,900,351 in 1917, Hk. Tls. 58,529,443 in 1916 and Hk. Tls. 56,927,308 in 1915.

ANGLO-CHINESE COLLEGE

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