September 9, 1897.]
cause it may happen to divert trade from one port to another, even though the port so benefited should happen to be a Russian one.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRÅDE REPORT.
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TRADE AND CURRENCY.
*--
Year. Imports. Exports. Total.
1876
319
201
520
294
212
506
385
625
240
Twenty years of trade" is the title of a brief but interesting paper by Mr. MICHAEL In the Newchwang consular report | G. - MULHALL in the current number for last year Mr. Hosie gives some of the Contemporary, details of railway progress in Manchuria the other day remarked:
A Straits paper which may
"That a gold be read with interest in currency in the Straits could not be for the connection with Mesra. NOEL, MURRAY Colony's advantage we think is evident AND Co's remarks. The junction of the "from the progress of these territories since Trans-Baikal and southern. Ussuri sections "the 50's, when the dollar was 5/-, the 70's of the Trans-Siberian Railway by a line "when it was 4/2, up to the present day through the south and north of the Hei-
when it is down to 1/94." If Mr. Mui- Jung-Chiang and Kirin provinces respec- HALL's figures are to be accepted Great Bri- tively, which is
to be commenced dur- tain can have little cause to regret her ing the
present year (1897), cannot maintenance of the gold standard, nor need fail, Mr. HOSIE says, to alter in her dependencies fear to follow her example. some respects the commercial relations of We have heard much of late years of the Manchuria. Hitherto, Hei-lung-Chiang and injury done to British trade by the apprecia- Kirin have sent the great volume of their tion of gold, but British trade hins nevertheless produce to Newchwang for export, and continued to increase prodigiously.
As re- have depended to a great extent on the gards the United Kingdom the following same port for their requirements in the table shows the value at decennial periods shape of foreign manufactures. True there of imports retained for consumption, and has been a small trade, chiefly in kerosine that of British exports, in millions of pounds oil and seaweed, from Vladivostock to Kirin, sterling : and part of the produce of Hei-lung-Chiang and northern Kirin has found its way down the Sungari to Eastern Siberia; but, on the 1886 whole, the trade of Manchuria with the 1896 Primorsk province has hitherto been com- There was a decline between 1876 and 1886, paratively insignificant. As regards distance but there was at the same time n stupendous from the commercial centres of the province fall in prices, which has continued since, for of Kirin there is little to choose between according to SAUERBECK's table, the price Vladivostock and Newchuang, and both levels of 1886 and 1896 were respectively ports are closed by ice in winter. So much 28 and 36 per cent. below that of 1876. If for the junction line of the Trans-Siberian prices had remained unaltered the trade Railway, and if the matter rested there the returns of 1896 would have been 975 probability of a large share of Newchwang's millions, that is, 88 per cent, over those of trade being transferred to Vladivostock 1876. Hence it would appear that the would seem to be very great, and volume of the trade rose 88 per cent., or that might equally mean a change in the four times as fast as the population. Mr. character of the trade, Russian goods being | MULHALL does not give the calculation substituted for those of other origin. But of what increase the trade of 1886 would Mr. Hosie goes on to say that the con- have shown over that of 1876 had it not struction of the proposed railway from New-been for the fall in prices, but on the chwang to Kirin will give a great impetus to trade, and its extension southwards to Talien-wan Bay, just north of Port Arthur, which is open to navigation all the year round, would tend still further to develop the valuable resources of the whole of Manchuria. It will be seen, therefore, that there is a prospect of Newchwang's benefiting by the opening of railways as much as Vladivostock, and British trade as much as Russian. Mr. HOSIE mentions also that the railway from Tientsin into Manchuria by way of Shan- haikwan is gradually being pushed north- east towards Moukden. The embankment has been built as far as the banks of the Ta-ling-Ho, which flows south some seventeen miles east-by-north of the city of Chinchow-fu, but the line is laid for traffic only ns far as Chung- how-so, about forty miles north-east of Shanhaik wan, and even that is not yet in full working order. Mr. HosIE's report was received at the Foreign Office on the 25th June last, and was presumably written early in May, since when some little further pro- gress will have been made with the line in ordinary course. It would seem on a survey of the whole circumstances that the con- struction of the Russian railway may be re- garded with equanimity by British mer- chants.
The Foochow Tea Improvement Company, we learn from the Echo, recently invited tenders for three small parcels of machine made tea from their Factory, in all 180 half-chests. This was generally responded to, with results grati- fying to the shareholders, and with good augury for the future of the proposed new Company, The broken orange pekoe realized over 45 taels
short.
we
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199
medium with which the balances are ad- justed.
Mr. MULHALL devotes the concluding section of his paper to "the world's trade,' as shown by the returns of 1894, the latest available, compared with the two previous decennial periods. A table is given showing that while the value of the world's trade as measured in sterling increased during twenty years by 21 per cent. the trade of the British Empire increased by 23 per cent., being in 1894 1,038 millions out of a total of 2,815 millions. paragraph of the article is as follows:- The concluding Whether we take the United Kingdom, "which has advanced, as we have seen, 20 per cent. since 1876, or the British Em- pire, which shows a rise of 23 per cent., "the figures compare very favourably with "those of Germany or France, the former having only risen 16 per cent., the latter actually declined. We have also seen that "the trade of the United Kingdom for 1896 was 24 per cent. over that of 1886, while the "latest returns (1894), as given above, show "that in ten years the trade of the United "States rose only 9 per cent., that of Ger-
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16
many 7 per cent., and that of France "declined 10 per cent. Under these cir- cumstances it is impossible to regard the condition of Britishi tra le as other than highly satisfactory."
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61
41
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44
IF
THE CHEFOO FORESHORE
DISPUTE.
Mr. Hopkins, the Acting Consul at Che- foo, in his report for 1896 says: "The "new bunding scheme begun in the year "under review and at the time of writing advancing rapidly to completion, is the outcome, and a most satisfactory outcome, of a rather complicated dispute as to fore- shore rights. Ultimately a general scheme was agreed upon at Peking by which the Imperial Maritime Customs undertook engineering operations which include "the filling in of considerable spaces, as well as the construction of a public bund and sea wall with two jetties, "the whole constituting a work of extension "and improvement which will be of the most real benefit to the trade and shipping "of this port. At the same time the British firm aggrieved was awarded 30,000 taels '(say £5,000) under an arbitration con- "ducted by Her Mjeisty's Consul and the
66
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+
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data above given the value in the latter year would have been 648 millions, showing a rise of 24 per cent. The actual increase in the value of the trade from 1886 to 1896 was 24 per cent., and, allowing for the fall in prices, the increase in quantity should be about 31 per cent. Whether the growth of trade would have been greater had the bimetallic ratio been maintained is an interesting subject of speculation. If we turn to China, where cheap silver is supposed
Commissioner of Customs at Shanghai in to have stimulated trade, find that respect of the site which has been acquired the total foreign trade of the country be- "by a Russian firm." It will be remem- tween 1887 and 1896 increased by about 44 bered that the site in question was claimed by per cent., and having regard to the decline the British firm under their alleged fore- of the white metal, as well as to the larger shore rights and it was contended that the sum on which the percentage increase of Chinese Government had no right to dispose British trade has to be calculated, an in- of the land. While the controversy was in crease of 23 per cent. in gold may per progress we argued that, following the prin- haps be considered as not inferior to a ciple of English law, the owners of waterside 44 per cent, increase in silver. In the case lots could not claim the foreshore, but would of China it is not much use going further be entitled to compensation if deprived of back than the year 1887 for purposes of access to the water; and that there was comparison, as that was the year in which nothing in Chinese law to justify the tradi- the trade of Kowloon and Lappa was tion that owners of marine or riparian lots brought into account, and the figures pre- had an absolute title to all accretions to vious to that year therefore refer to differ such lots. The decision arrived at seems to ent conditions. If cheap silver and dear support that view, but it was given gold exercised the influence on trade upon what Mr. HOPKINS rightly terms that is generally oredited to them "rather complicated dispute and no either the increase in Great Britain's written statement, answering to the judg trade should have been smaller ог ment of a court of law, having been China's increase should have been greater. It would seem, however, as Sir GEORGE COTTON expressed it the other day at the meeting of the Bombay Mill- owners' Association, that trade is governed more by what one nation has to give and what other nations require than by the
a
given of the grounds of the decision, it is doubtful how far it is to be taken as a reliable precedent. Owners of marine and riparian lots, however, would do well to take note of it and make effective their occupancy of all the land over which they conceive they have a claim. But whatever
i