SANTUAO
Santuao was voluntarily opened to foreign trade by the Chinese Government on the 8th May, 1899. The port includes the whole of the magnificent Santu Inlet, which is situated some 70 miles north of Foochow. The foreign settlement is on the island of Santu in the centre of the inlet. The harbour is certainly one of the finest on the China coast: the approaches to it are well-defined, and vessels of the largest size may enter at any time, regardless of the state of tide. H. M.S. Waterwitch surveyed the whole of the inlet in 1899, and an Admiralty chart has been published. A telegraph cable was successfully laid from the mainland to the Settlement in July, 1905, and communication established with all China ports. A new cable connecting the telegraph office at Santuao with the mainland was laid in May, 1921, and the incon- venience caused by receiving and dispatching all messages from the other side of the harbour, which had been experienced for four years previously, was thus removed.
The port of Santuao serves important tea districts as much of the tea exported from Foochow to Europe is first shipped from Santuao. No building operations. worth mentioning have been undertaken at the port, and no modern methods have as yet been introduced in the manufacture of the principal local products. -paper and pottery, though excellent, raw material is close at hand, especially extensive deposits of kaolin capable of yielding far superior pottery than is now brought on the market from this district. The iron mines in the districts of Kutien, Fuan, and Siapu, where the deposits were reported in 1918 to be of a promising nature, have not yet been properly exploited, and so far no smelting works at Santuao, as then anticipated, have been erected, so that a regular trade in this valuable mineral does not yet exist here. The chief towns of the district are Funing, Fu-an, Ningte, and Shouning.
TRADE IN 1933
Santuao is only some 75 kilometres distant in a straight line from the provincial capital, Foochow, and its trade is financed almost entirely through the latter port. Although the Central Bank of China maintains a branch office at Santuao, it does so for the transaction of Customs business only, and there are no banks in the port doing general business for the public. As Foochow not only financed the Santuao tea trade but is the finishing (scenting and grading) and marketing centre for all Fukien teas, the fortunes of Santuao are very much bound up with those of Foochow. Consequently, the financial stringency during the early part of the year under review in the latter port, brought about by the over indebtedness of the tea dealers to the banks in the previous year, made further loans for advancement to producers in the Santuao district very difficult to acquire in amounts sufficient for the season's trade.. This difficulty was accentuated by the disturbed conditions in both ports. The Occupation of Yenping by Communists in August, and the fear that these forces might continue their successes and advance farther southward, threw both districts. into confusion, and many influential merchants gave more attention to their personal safety than to the pursuit of business, fleeing the country-side. Fortunately, however, these Communist forces were soon driven back to the Kiangsi border. Later, in November, the political disturbances in Fukien, centring in Foochow, caused a complete interruption of steamer communication between the two ports, while the ensuing disorder encouraged a fresh eruption of banditry and piracy in the Santuao area that resulted in serious raids being made on the towns of Patu and Chihsi in Ningteh hsien, Kantang and Pasishih in Fuan hsien, and Komen (where there is a Customs station) in Loyuan hsien. These adverse conditions discouraged the never very significant import trade and reduced the exports of tea, the mainstay of the port and district, to the lowest level (78,720 piculs) reached in more than two decades. Trade became so bad towards the end of the season that a good deal of tea leaf was left unharvested. Some encouragement was to be seen, however, in the demand from Russia for black teas and in the resumption of sales of both paper and chinaware (the other chief export staples of the district) to Manchuria. The shipment of
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