A380
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HANKOW:
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petition in the mineral oil field led to very low prices for kerosene, to speculative buying of this commodity by dealers, and, incidentally, to the opening up of a wider market again amongst the poorer classes, who have had to content themselves with vegetable oil illuminants in recent years. Another import luxury article to register an increase was foreign sugar, possibly indicating the beginnings of a financial recovery in the district from the effects of the great flood of 1931; but it should be noted that a much greater recovery took place in the imports of native sugar, the figures for which were 137,000 piculs as against only 36,000 piculs in 1932. Direct imports of foreign piece goods declined by nearly 50 per cent, while importations of Chinese cotton piece goods and cotton products increased from approximately 15 million to almost 25 million dollars in value. Since produce sent to an ocean port for. subsequent transhipment abroad is now recorded as an interport movement of cargo at ports of first shipment like Hankow and other river ports, it has become impossible to assess exactly the progress of any individual port's trade with foreign countries. However, as the decline in the value of Hankow's direct shipments abroad from 32 million to 7 million dollars is more tlian counterbalanced by the rise in her coastwise exports from 107 million to 135 million dollars, it may be reasonably assumed that her eventual contribution to the foreign export trade of the country did not diminish during the year under review Full data regarding the port's share of the inter- port and the direct foreign trade of the country, respectively, will be found in the annual statistics published in "The Trade of Cliina, 1933." Some of Hankow's principal exports are: wood oil, ores, raw cotton, cotton yarn, cotton piece goods, bristles, egg products, tea, intestines, hides, skins, wheat flour, beancake, utgalls, china-root, medicines, vegetable tallow, sesamum seed, leaf tobacco, ramie, and varnish. There was little change in the port's shipping statistics, the total tonnage entering and clearing under General Regulations being 6.7 million tons, in eluding 0.5 million tons of ocean-going vessels trading directly with foreign countries... Freight charges to Europe were practically the same as in the previous year, but. charges via the Pacific tended to be higher for some produce. The highest water-mark registered on the Hankow river gauge was 47.2 feet, the river remaining at this level from the 25th to the 28th June. As this rise in the river occurred exceptionally early in the year and was 4 feet above the average, the municipal authorities closed all drainage apertures and other passages in the recently constructed protective walls on the bund in expectation of another flood. These precautions were fully justified, as, had a more than normal rainfall coincided with this unusual rise in the river, con- siderable flooding must have resulted. The channels in the Hankow district gave little trouble during the year. The draught-limiting channel for this section of the river was again the Hankow Crossing, which had a minimum least depth of 12) feet i on the 13th January. Draught-limiting regulations were strictly enforced during the low-water season, with the result that only three major accidents to shipping occurred. two of them being due to faulty piloting. During the summer the Willes Island Cut-off was marked for light-draught navigation after being closed for 11 years. Altogether 360 Notices to Mariners were issued from the River Inspector's office at, Hankow during the year; the whole of the river from. Sinti to Ichang was re-chartered; 365 miles of the river below Hankow were re-surveyed; 157 plans of these surveys were published; and 2,669 prints of plans were sold to the public. The total distance covered by River Inspectorate launches was 59.818 miles, to which figure the Hankow launches contributed a total of 13,727 miles. Hupeh province made considerable progress in motor highway construction during the year. Possibly the main accomplishment was the linking up of existing roads with the Hsinyang-Hwangchuan highway of the Honan road-system by the completion of part of the Hankow Kaifeng highway as far as Macheng, from which place the first-men- tioned highway can be reached by an extension roadway to Hsiaokailing. The Hankow-chang highway is completed as far as Hojung, and, as this road crosses the Shasi-Laohokow highway, Hankow is thus connected up with the important towns of Shasi on the Yangtze River and Laohokow on the Han River near the Honan frontier. Numerous other roads were built and/or improved during the year, the credit for which is due to the vigorous work undertaken by the bandit-suppression forces in the border areas of the province near the Honan and Anhwei frontiers, the most important of these roads being one from Macheng to Wusüeh on the Yangtze. At the close of 1933, according to information supplied by the Hupeh Bureau of Reconstruction, the province possessed 1,747 kilometres of motor highway, of which 584 kilometres were constructed during the year under review.
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