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LUNGKOW-WEIHAIWEI
The town of Lungkow has a population of 5,690. It is estimated that within a radius of about five miles of Lungkow there is a population of 65,000. A level stretch of country behind Lungkow, thickly populated and very fertile, gives promise of the port some day assuming considerable importance. The proposed Chefoo-Weihsien Railway would connect Lungkow with both Chefoo and Weihsien, thus with north and central Shantung. It is thought that the Weihsien-Lungkow-Chefoo motor highway-the Weihsien Lungkow section of which is completed-may be converted into a railway in the near future; in the meantime, this new road may bring more trade to the port. The value of land is rising rapidly.
The opening of this port to foreign trade was due to overtures made to the Chinese Government by Japan. There is a large passenger trade between Shantung Province and Manchuria. Between 10,000 and 50,000 Shangtung natives migrate to Manchuria each year for the summer crops, returning again in the autumn or early winter. At present the bulk of this traffic goes from Chefoo and Tsingtao. As Dairen is about 120 miles from Lungkow it will be possible to divert much of this passenger traffic to Lungkow, where Japanese steamers will probably be prepared to take it at a lower rate to Dairen than would be possible from Chefoo or Tsingtao, especially so when the railway is completed connecting Lungkow with Weihsien.
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The trade of the port coming under the cognisance of the Chinese Maritime Customs amounted to Hk. Tls. 5,871,878 in 1921, as compared with Hk. Tls. 3,968,089 in 1920, and Hk. Tls. 2,802,703 in 1919. The principal staple of the port is vermicelli, the local brand being, in the estimation of Chinese consumers, supreme in quality. The ex- port of this commodity has risen from 26,000 piculs in 1916 to 107,000 piculs in 1921. A small factory for making isinglass from seaweed, and another for making glassware from imported broken glass, started operations in 1921.
WEIHAIWEI
衞海威 Weihaiwei
Weihaiwei is situated on the south side of the Gulf of Pechili near the extremity of the Shantung Promontory, and about 115 miles distant from Port Arthur on the north-west and the same from the port of Kiaochau on the south-west. Formerly a strongly fortified Chinese naval station, it was captured by the Japanese on 30th January, 1895, and was held by them pending the payment of the indemnity, which was finally liquidated in 1898. Before the evacuation by the Japanese an agreement was arrived at between Great Britain and China that the former should take over the territory on lease from the latter, and, accordingly, on the 24th May, 1898, the British flag was formally hoisted, the Commissioners representing their respective countries at the ceremony being Consul Hopkins, of Chefoo, and Captain King-Hall, of H.M.S. Narcissus, for Great Britain, and Taotai Yen and Captain Lin, of the Chinese war vessel Foochi, for China. Weihaiwei was leased to Great Britain "for so long a period as Port Arthur shall remain in the occupation of Russia," and was regarded by the British Government as a sanatorium for the British squadron on the China station. At the Washington Conference in 1921 Great Britain offered to return the territory to China and during the latter part of 1922 an Anglo-Chinese Commission met to deal with the questions arising out of this. These questions included arrangements for the use of the port by the British Fleet as a summer station, provisions for the safety of foreign residents, and the represention of foreign residents in the administration of the territory.
The leased territory, which lies in latitude 37 deg. 30 min.N, longitude 122 deg.10min.E comprised the Island of Liu Kung, all the islands in the Bay of Weihaiwei, and a belt of land ten English miles wide along the entire coastline, and consisted of ranges of rugged mountains and rocky hills up to 1,500 feet high, dividing the plains into valleys and river beds. The island of Liu Kung, once barren and nearly treeless but now verdant and picturesque as the result of a system of afforestation inaugurated in 1910,